Project Description
Future medical professionals are molded by the educational experiences they encounter. The UTHSC’s Center for Healthcare Improvement and Patient Simulation (CHIPS) provides immersive, real-world healthcare environments for students to become intimately involved with hands-on learning. This new structure will serve students of the medical, dental, physical therapy and pharmacy departments of the University of Tennessee, Memphis campus. As part of an urban university, the project site was restrictive, and the university lacks defined visual and physical connections between buildings. The existing context is architecturally varied with modern, brutalist and neo gothic structures. Critical to the relationship between the existing buildings is how those buildings tie together and respond to one another to create a cohesive campus-like quality. The three-story building fills the site affording little opportunity for variation in the building footprint. The building critically responds to and compliments its’ neighbors through the interplay of materiality and form. The west elevation’s brick facade is lifted to celebrate the ramped entrance while also framing views of the surrounding context. Views into and from the building are intentionally delineated, heightening the importance of the connections to the park and adjacent structures. The interiors are also designed to promote collaboration between peers. The corridors provide informal spaces for discussion, contemplation and study. The classrooms, skills labs and multi-purpose rooms are designed to be flexible to transform as needed for real-world simulations. The second floor focuses on hospital-based learning environments. Each exam room provides opportunities to focus on specialty learning, including an operation room, labor and delivery room, intensive care room, and single and double patient rooms. These are accompanied with debrief rooms where students can work together following simulations. The third floor focuses on clinic exam rooms for medical and dental learning. The floor plan accommodates the integration of mock patients which enter from the core of the building with student entry from the outer core, mimicking realistic hospital patient and staff flows.