Richmond 市中心 VCU 医学教育中心

Occupying a site within the dense, urban MCV Campus in the heart of downtown Richmond, the project called for a strategy that would open the building to its context while defining the building mass with a number of discrete, well-scaled components. An inviting and efficient diagonal pedestrian circulation path through the building resolves a disjuncture between the symbolic center of the campus to the east and its functional center to the west.

The sequence of spaces from the entrance on 12th Street includes the covered portico, a double-height lobby, and a diagonal ramp that serves as a stepped forum space. The second floor accommodates a bridge to Main Hospital, a 250-seat auditorium, and an overlook to the main lobby. The elevator bank, placed to allow large flexible floor plates, accommodates a variety of uses, from a 300-seat auditorium to teaching studios, simulation labs, and dry labs on the upper floors. Faculty offices, administrative offices, and meeting rooms are consolidated in perimeter zones.

Designed for LEED Silver certification, the project includes climate walls with computer-controlled electronic sunshades, internal sunshades, and plentiful natural light.

Medical quadrant of downtown Richmond campus

205,000 ft2 / 19,000 m2 gross area; research spaces, clinical skills & simulation spaces, flexible teaching spaces, auditorium, student interaction areas, administration and faculty offices, student affairs spaces, technology services, public spaces, and a bridge to an adjacent building

Virginia Commonwealth University

Architecture; exterior envelope; interior design of public spaces

Steel frame, concrete slab on metal deck. Precast concrete.

LEED Silver Certified

Outstanding Design

Award for Excellence

Year 2013

Work started in 2008

Work finished in 2013

Main structure Steel

Client Virginia Commonwealth University

Status Completed works

Type Colleges & Universities / Research Centres/Labs