LSU Health Shreveport Center for Medical Education
The Center for Medical Education at LSU Health Shreveport 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 replaces a surface parking lot, energizing the campus core. Glass and metal emerge from a terracotta base, using 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 and connections between nutrition, fitness, and intellectual discovery.
The project supports a more resilient campus, enhancing the mission to Teach, Heal, and Discover in a way that promotes the community’s overall health and wellness.
The building is lifted, opening the ground plane. This makes the area a thoroughfare and communal asset rather than an obstacle to pedestrians. The plaza shades the interconnected walkways that flow through it, creating a space to meet and catch a breeze on a hot Louisiana day.
Strategically positioned at the heart of campus, the facility anchors the academic and wellness experience and strengthens connections across disciplines, pathways, and people.
The wellness journey begins the moment you arrive, with a variety of space types designed to support rest, reflection, movement, and restoration. Multiple floors are visible at once around the central stair, strengthening a sense of connectedness to the flow of campus life and an awareness of different opportunities within the building. Placed along the perimeter, circulation and study spaces welcome abundant views and natural light.
The clinical skills and simulation suites promote an active, hands-on education, preparing students to enter their medical careers with earned confidence.
In addition to training spaces, the building hosts the Emerging Viral Threats (EVT) Lab, a regional service that monitors harmful pathogens and includes a high-containment BSL-3 lab.
