FORT WORTH, Texas—Texas Christian University aims to increase both its teaching and health-care capabilities in the greater Dallas area thanks to its soon-to-be-realized Anne Burnett Marion School of Medicine building, the first major TCU building to be constructed off the main campus. When completed in the summer of 2024, the Burnett School will train 240 “Empathetic Scholars” in a modern medical teaching facility located in Fort Worth’s Medical Innovation District and convenient to several local hospitals and clinics.

As designed by CO Architects and Hoefer Welker’s Dallas-Fort Worth office, the Burnett School of Medicine facility will encompass 95,000 square feet of educational space for the medical profession and is part of 5.3-acre “extended campus” plan envisioned by TCU. The four-story structure will be sited at the corners of South Henderson and West Rosedale.

The medical education center is named in honor of Fort Worth native Anne Burnett Marion, a philanthropist who was dedicated to serving her community and the cause of medical education. Prior to her death in 2020, Burnett Marion donated $50 million to the medical school’s construction budget.

Jonathan Kanda, principal at Los Angeles-based CO Architects, said that his company’s approach entails respecting the local aesthetic of the DFW region, while infusing the school with modern amenities necessary to current medical education.

“This new home will enable collaborative learning in team-based classrooms, experiential learning in simulated medical environments, and a meaningful, intimate culture in a wide range of community areas and small-group study spaces,” Kanda said.

Meanwhile, Travis Leissner, an associate principal at Hoefer Welker, believes that the new medical campus will serve to fuel future innovation “not just through traditional life science research but also through close engagement with a broad, interdisciplinary array of hospital systems, health-related consortia, and biotech industries partners.”

The designers are working in conjunction with Linbeck, who is acting as both construction manager and general contractor, as well as civil and structural engineer Dunaway and building systems engineer SSR Inc. Together they will have to tackle a project timeline that must allow for the building to be ready for the next class of students in the fall of 2024. (The first class commenced their studies in 2019, according to the university.)

“To meet construction milestones…the project team could not operate and deliver business as usual,” Hoefer Welker Vice President Tony Schmitz informed School Construction News. “We all have been working simultaneously and collaboratively in design and document creation to provide direction and ensure design intent and constructability have been addressed for active work in the field.”

The medical school’s dean, Stuart D. Flynn, termed it a “new era” for TCU, as well as for Fort Worth’s Near Southside Neighborhood and surrounding Tarrant County.

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LOS ANGELES—CO Architects has added a new 21,000-square-foot gymnasium at Berendo Middle School as part of a modern updating of the historic school that first opened in 1910. Berendo, located in the Koreatown area of Los Angeles, is the oldest California middle school still operating on its original site. The Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) operates Berendo, comprising 100 percent minority students.

General contractor Kemp Bros. Construction worked in concert with CO on remodeling Berendo’s existing administration building so that its new Healthy Start Clinic could come online in the same space. The medical health clinic now hosts a conference room, reception and three examination rooms across its 2,000 square feet.

The physical education complex features an entirely new gymnasium and athletic field, as well as a plaza that links it to the surrounding community neighborhoods of Pico-Union, MacArthur Park and Koreatown. Inside, the gym can be continually reconfigured for not only sports but also communal gatherings. Colors chosen for the interior include yellow, white and blue vinyl, thereby combining the school’s original colors with its current color blue. A banner inside the gym proudly proclaims “Charging Forward Since 1910 BERENDO” in large blue letters.

CO Architects included sustainable elements in the gym, such as structural materials made of recycled steel and steel studs covered with rigid insulation and then plaster so as to reduce the amount of thermal resistance to even below what is currently mandated by code. Additionally, a “cool roof” will reduce the amount of heat that bleeds into the building due to the typical sunshine of Southern California. The gym also features “solar tubes” that funnel natural light into the building. An outdoor campus garden has been expanded and more trees planted to provide more shade as well.

“Physical fitness is a healthy part of how kids learn, and this gym is going to bring a much needed opportunity to continue that program,” Rosa Trujillo, principal of Berendo Middle School, said in a recent statement. “My favorite place is the balcony. To be able to see the downtown skyline of Los Angeles, to be able to see the Hollywood Hills, it’s like you can look out to those areas and dream of what you’re going to be in the future, who you’re going to be in Los Angeles, and how you’re going to contribute to our city.”

In a statement emailed to School Construction News, CO Architects Principal Fabian Kremkus, who served as design principle on this project, said that his firm “had to come up with something that strengthened the social fabric of the school so that people that live in the neighborhood really get use out of the campus.”

“This was the first opportunity where we could reinsert a real campus feel to it, providing shade, trees and grasses, and seating areas where people can gather,” Kremkus said. “It has throughout the roof area big skylights inserted, and a large north-facing three-story window also brings northern light in without contributing to the heat gain in the building from the sun.”

CO Architects’s other educated-related projects in California include Crown Hall, a new residence hall at Claremont McKenna College, as well as modernizing El Segundo High School.

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RIVERSIDE, Calif.—The University of California Regents board has approved the Riverside campus’s new $84 million Education Building II project for UCR’s School of Medicine.

Following a design-build competition, the University of California Regents—in concert with the UCR Office of Planning, Design, and Construction—selected the design-build team of Hensel Phelps and CO Architects for the construction project. Both firms are headquartered in Southern California.

Included in the education building plan are an outdoor plaza that will give the School of Medicine its own unique identity. Solar panels and state-of-the-art thermally insulating materials will help reduce the building’s environmental impact. Due to its sustainable design, the Education Building II facility has been certified LEED Platinum.

In a recent statement, Eric Bain, Hensel Phelps’ operations manager for the project, said that his firm is excited to be back at UC Riverside. Hensel Phelps previously worked on the campus’s Multidisciplinary Research Building, which won a National Award of Merit in the category Industrial, Process and Research Facilities.

“At the core of our design and construction efforts is the desire to support, promote, and advance the campus’s vision to create an inclusive and innovative learning environment,” said Bain. “The design-build team looks forward to working side by side with UCR to create a new home for the School of Medicine that will be a focal point on campus and within the broader Riverside County community.”

“We have partnered with Hensel Phelps on other strategic pursuits for the University of California, and have highly refined the process to deliver exceptional buildings,” James Simeo, principal at CO Architects and project design lead, said of the collaboration. “The new, five-story facility will create a new home for the School of Medicine, prioritizing collaborative spaces for students, faculty, and staff.”

University personnel weighed in on the value of the Education Building II project, and also praised the joint venture of the two construction firms, which is being labeled “Hensel Phelps + CO Architects.”

“I would like to thank the UC Regents for their approval of this project, which will give us the space we need to grow our class sizes to 125 students per year and continue to fulfill the mission of increasing the number of physicians in the underserved inland Southern California,” Dr. Deborah Deas, vice chancellor of health sciences and the Mark and Pam Rubin Dean of the UCR School of Medicine, said of the collaboration. “There is so much to be excited about.”

Construction is due to kick off this summer, and Bain anticipates UCR School of Medicine’s Education Building II’s will be completed sometime in the middle of 2023.

UCR’s medical school first opened in 2013. In addition to its doctorate in medicine, the school offers concentrations in biomedical sciences, general surgery, pediatrics, psychiatry and cardiovascular medicine.

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TUCSON, Ariz.—Los Angeles-based CO Architects recently won a 2020 American Architecture Award for its work on the $128 million University of Arizona Health Sciences Innovation Building (HSIB) in Tucson.

The honor was presented in the Schools and Universities category by the Chicago Athenaeum: Museum of Architecture and Design and the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies.

“This American Architecture Award is a tribute to our team’s insightful work on the University of Arizona HSIB,” said Scott Kelsey, FAIA, managing principal at CO Architects. “Our architects creatively unified the new multi‐purpose building with its environment, echoing our mission to elevate communities with benchmark design.”

Completed in 2019, the 230,000‐square‐foot HSIB is a multidisciplinary medical and health‐sciences education facility that supports the university’s Colleges of Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Public Health, as well as the Arizona Simulation Technology and Education Center. Kitchell was the general contractor on this impressive project.

To connect the HSIB to the campus’ existing masonry brick aesthetic, CO Architects selected terracotta, a material that could be extruded and manipulated. Visually appealing, the terracotta is hung on the façade’s curtainwall system, improving the building’s energy performance.

Facility highlights include the first‐floor, multi‐story “forum,” a flexible event space that serves the building’s departments, the university populace, and the outside community. The room opens to the campus through three glass hangar doors, expanding the space and supporting events from 50 to 1,000 guests. Social/study terraces are carved into the building to provide shaded outdoor access to nature and extensive views.

On the seventh floor, a black box theater‐inspired “Simulation Deck” creates immersive simulation environments that mimic realistic, multi‐sensory experiences supplemented by a viewing gallery.

The University of Arizona HSIB project is CO Architects’ eighth American Architecture Award, dating back to 2013. The 2020 award winners were selected from more than 400 entries.

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The 245,000-square-foot copper building is the latest addition to the 15-year-old Phoenix Biomedical Campus (PBC), which brings bioresearch and education to the downtown area. BSPB will be the latest facility to do that, as researchers begin to move into the building’s fifth and sixth floors. A joint venture between Sundt Construction and DPR Construction (with offices throughout Arizona) will continue to build out the 10^th floor, which was originally designed as shell space. Los Angeles-based CO Architects and locally based Ayres Saint Gross designed the 10-story facility.

“This building will foster collaborations with scientists that will lead to more cures, better treatments and bring more federal and private dollars to Arizona,” said University of Arizona President Ann Weaver Hart in a statement at last year’s topping out ceremony.

The Center for Applied Nanoscience and Biomedicine will be headquartered in the building, according to Sundt’s website. Researchers in that department have been involved in major discoveries such as the Rapid DNA test, which detects early-stage bacterial infections.

“Completion of this Biomedical Sciences building will allow the University of Arizona to pursue expanded partnerships with industry that we hope will lead to groundbreaking discoveries in the areas of neuroscience, cardiovascular and thoracic science,” said Hart in a statement.

The Arizona Board of Regents approved funding for the $136 million BSPB in 2014 using Stimulus Plan for Economic and Educational Development bonds. Construction on the facility is expected to conclude in about a year.

The building is the seventh development in the expansion of the downtown PBC and expanding academic medical center built by DPR Construction. In 2012, the adjacent Health Sciences Education Building opened, housing health education for the University of Arizona and Northern Arizona University.

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