Center for Medical Education and Wellness
The Center for Medical Education and Wellness is an engine behind the next generation of health professionals in Louisiana. Designed to connect students to one another and body to mind, the building inspires active learning and collaboration.
The dynamic form acts as a gateway to campus. Shimmering glass and metal extend from a terracotta base, using energy, transparency, and lightness to transform the structure from bunker to beacon. This vitality matches that of the programs inside: research labs including an Emerging Viral Threats (EVT) lab, a unique classroom-in-the-round and other instructional spaces, clinical skills and simulation suites, plus a fitness center and student dining. Outside, the open and sheltered plaza and promenade offer all a warm welcome.
We see the facility as a wellness journey, promoting an experiential medical education while encouraging holistic well-being. Students navigate floor plates that are visually and physically linked in a way that nurtures university culture as well as connections between nutrition, fitness, and intellectual discovery.
The building is lifted, opening the ground plane. This makes the area a thoroughfare and communal asset rather than an obstacle to pedestrians. Offering shade to those traveling along the interconnected walkways that flow through it, the plaza creates a space to meet and catch a breeze on a hot Louisiana day.
The clinical skills and simulation suites promote an active, hands-on education, preparing students to enter their medical careers with earned confidence.
