Project Data:

Completion Date:     8/17/2021

Square Footage:      142159

Building Use:           University Campus for Health Sciences Education

Project Description:

West Coast University (WCU) rooted in Southern California with its ownership but outreaching across the nation in many locations, needed to relocate their existing Dallas campus to nearby Richardson for its healthy, friendly atmosphere and to provide students with a safer community embedded campus they can call their own. Building on a growing relationship, WCU partnered with a local Orange County Architect to transform a long sitting idle three-story commercial office building into an activated learning ecosystem that provides a connected campus experience encouraging students to flourish. Aiming to enhance students’ well-being and performance by enabling more time spent on campus, the design team crafted an amenity-rich campus infused with a sense of wonder and discovery.

WCU-Texas in Richardson offers a condensed, high-intensity health sciences education program, with a teaching method that accelerates students into the workforce. Their values center upon student interests and success, and they take a vested interest in every step of a student's journey. This constant focus on student success, coupled with an active presence in their local community, drove their relocation. The University was deeply sensitive to its branding and messaging to communicate directly with the local community and assimilate with their Texan heritage.

Located near the Richardson Performing Arts Center, the Architect was challenged to infuse an academic, educational presence within a typical closed off office building having an underdeveloped expansive parking lot. The team introduced a landscaped entrance plaza that creates a connected, energized campus vibe, where students can study, connect, or socialize. No longer a tenant in shared space, WCU-Texas in Richardson now has the freedom to fully embrace their purpose and identity.

With the quality of the space of utmost importance to shepherd students’ journeys, the team looked internally to create a vertically connected campus by opening a two-story welcoming entry layered with innovative knowledge on display and a library resource bridge connecting to the three-story atrium heart of the building. A signature stair focuses on connectivity to encourage visibility, collaboration, curiosity, healthy movement, and social collision.

The first floor focuses on the student tour experience, beginning with a bright, open reception and admission space, and ending with career services to symbolize the complete journey at WCU-Texas in Richardson. A custom EKG wave on the reception desk, a natural material palette with anti-bacterial copper-like metals and Texas limestone, and a striking three-story green wall with natural sky lighting enhance the bright, biophilic atmosphere and reinforce the scientific values and health and wellness focus of the university.

Firm Name:              Gensler

Completion Date:     8/17/2021

Square Footage:      142159

Building Use:           University Campus for Health Sciences Education

Location:                 Richardson, TX

Project Description:
The West Coast University Texas in Richardson project is a great partnering between a client and its architect who are aligned with a similar drive for design excellence on all levels. The mission was to create an innovative vested learning experience to shepherd their student’s success through an engaging active safe and welcoming built environment. Honoring the importance of the client’s industry, its growth and future potential that has positive longevity in shaping the community and world is parallelly reflected through the framework of this design. By honoring its architectural expression and stability, revitalized and improving the abandoned elements and antiquated interior concepts with new innovative ways to experience and learn, WCU-Texas in Richardson is a place of excellence and well-being to be shared with the community, accessible to all, and embraced for its active participation in shaping our future for the better.

- DESIGN FOR INTEGRATION -

1. Purpose for the WCU project was to create a positive learning experience for every student to flourish in an exceptional facility. Providing a welcoming and approachable experience, embedded in a safe and secure community becomes the engine for WCU’s world changing education – influencing the healthcare industry locally, nationally, globally.

2. This project revitalized a former corporate HQ – vacant for years – creating a dormant zone in a vested community. The project was greeted with open arms and enthusiasm for its new use.

3. WCU provides a variety of opportunities for local events, outreach, education, and wellness within and beyond the academic community connecting people and industries.

4. Adaptive reuse improvements to the building and site transformed this out-of-date architectural typology into a new flexible and connected facility within which new generations can learn, grow, and work. Saving this large facility from a landfill, upgrading systems and lighting was the starting point for this newly light-filled, wellness-oriented facility.


- DESIGN FOR EQUITABLE COMMUNITIES -

1. Client community outreach and support through shared learning and a program that prioritizes student success and completion.

2. Client health and wellness local events and on-site assistance through health screenings and other wellness services hosted in their flexible multi-purpose labs

3. Building size, layout and location could be a local support in times of crisis

4. Client partnerships with industry professionals fine tunes curriculum to serve community needs, and likewise, WCU offers their state-of-the art technology as a resource for up-and-coming healthcare professionals.


- DESIGN FOR ECOSYSTEMS -

1. Basis of design created a student centric vertical interior campus with an open concept promoting connection, intrigue, interaction, wellness and ease of movement between all points on the campus.

2. Welcoming and approachable throughout with its openness balanced with zones to focus and seek quiet.

3. Multi-modal supporting a variety of educational modes, activities, groups, and technologies

4. Celebrates local materials and habitat through branding.

5. Balanced wellbeing with ease of access to Cafe on campus.

6. Café services are of local variety in lieu of large food chain. The café’s presence, location, and menu make healthy the easy option for students.


- DESIGN FOR WATER -

1. Reuse of existing stormwater and rainfall systems remained in place.

2. Living wall is its own ecosystem with an integral automated watering drip system to minimize water use.

3. Combination water bottle filler stations were installed at code required water fountains in an effort to reduce wasted water.


- DESIGN FOR ECONOMY -

1. Project site selected for its renovation and reuse potential.

2. Review and rework of existing building systems for long term tenancy.


- DESIGN FOR ENERGY -

1. Re-introduced and revitalized abandoned skylights with the added atrium space provides natural light reflecting throughout the building thus reducing energy needs.

2. Ample un-used existing roof top area lends itself to future opportunities for photovoltaics.

3. Rework of existing building systems in lieu of replacement allows for a more purposeful phased planning for sustainable improvements.


- DESIGN FOR WELL-BEING -

1. This design focused on student wellness and creating a well-balanced active learning ecosystem while shepherding students with ease through a rigorous educational program.

2. Fosters collaboration and engagement through the variety of spaces available

3. Spaces are always active through layered programming, ensuring multi-use throughout the entire day and semester

4. Emotes safety and security through the design of the atrium, placement of staffed zones to ensure easy access to help without a sense of surveillance. Emotes safety and security through the design of the atrium, placement of staffed zones to ensure easy access to help without a sense of surveillance.

5. By opening up the building’s heart to a new atrium, existing skylights and ample natural light flood this once-dark floor plate – connecting the students and staff to the natural environment and our circadian rhythms.


- DESIGN FOR RESOURCES -

1. Client, architect and contractor worked closely together to achieve balanced priorities.

2. Where possible, materials and elements such as lighting, frames, and some glazing were able to be sourced and fabricated locally or nationally in lieu of shipping from overseas.

3. Texas Limestone was specifically designed into the living wall for local sourcing and to celebrate the community.

4. Reuse of exterior elements and roof top equipment was repaired and reworked where possible versus totally scrapped for new.


- DESIGN FOR CHANGE -

1. Client is continuously researching, innovating, and testing different methods of delivering education to their students and the public to be able to fluctuate over time: in-home learning, standard classroom/lecture, hands on training, virtual training, partnering with clinical professionals, and learning abroad.

2. Design and planning of the space reflect modularity and flexibility for future adaptability yet streamlined for student journey efficiency

3. Builds awareness of evolving technology through learning on display

4. Flipped a legacy a inwardly focused design into an outward openness to promote intrigue and advancement through multiple connectivity with architectural, biophilic, wellness, and branding elements.

5. Celebrates the importance of building on strong historic foundations not only through the architecture but also through the branding interlaced throughout.

6. Honoring abandoned base building elements through revitalization and use to introduce and promote wellbeing and outdoor connection through skylights pulling natural light deep into the building, providing growth to the living wall, and creating transformative movement throughout.


- DESIGN FOR DISCOVERY -

1. Remembrance and reflection to realize rooted connections through activation of the new atrium and branding moments such as the evolution of patient care and alumni celebration graphics.

2. Building on solid foundations of initial discovery and excitement

3. Innovation on display for enticement and encouragement of collaboration

4. Creating intentional collision for intrigue and discussion

5. Incubating and experimenting

Design Architect:
Gensler

Associate Architect or Firm:
Gensler

Landscape Architect:
SWA

Owner / Developer:
West Coast University

Engineer:
JQ Structural Engineering (Structural)
Schmidt & Stacy (MEP)
Oldner Lighting (Lighting)

General Contractor:
HRNCIR Construction

Consultant:
Habitat Horticulture (Living Wall)

Photographer:
Gensler / Ryan Gobuty