HOK was recently selected to design the new University at Buffalo (UB) School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences on its downtown campus upon winning a global design ideas competition. Located at the center of the region’s emerging bio-sciences corridor, this new transit-oriented medical school development will anchor a lively, urban mixed-use district on campus and bring 1,200 students, faculty and staff downtown. With the goal of fostering collaboration and interdisciplinary care, the new academic medical center will create connections that allow students, faculty, biomedical researchers and clinicians to move easily from classroom to bedside to lab. More images and archtiects’ description after the break.
“Building a new medical school is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our university and region, and a critical step in evolving the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus into an academic health center on par with those of Pittsburgh and Cleveland,” said Michael E. Cain, vice president for health sciences and dean of the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences. Kenneth Drucker, FAIA, design principal for the project and design director for HOK’s New York office, said his team approached the medical school project “after a thorough analysis of the scale and texture of the city and the history, quality and craft of Buffalo architecture.”
The proposed $375 million medical school, funded in part by NYSUNY 2020 legislation, is a key component of the UB 2020 plan for academic excellence, which is intended to benefit students, faculty, staff and the Western New York community. Reflecting UB’s sustainability and climate-impact reduction goals, HOK will design a highly sustainable building and target Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification. Groundbreaking for the medical school is scheduled for fall 2013 and construction is expected to be complete in 2016.
“This new medical center will become a catalyst for further development in downtown Buffalo and Western New York, and support the convergence of technology and research that will transform the practice of medicine,” said Jim Berge, AIA, principal-in-charge for the project and HOK’s director of science and technology in New York.
