Kaiser Permanente sought a school unfettered by the traditional pedagogy of academic medical centers, but also detached from typical campus amenities. This pushed the design team to reimagine the typology entirely. How does one envision, on a tight urban site, all the components needed for first-rate medical education?
The resulting design is an entire campus within a building. The 80,000 sf building houses simulation, flex classrooms, cafeteria, lecture hall, computer center, small group learning, collaboration zones, and outdoor recreation areas to create “the school of medicine as a laboratory.”
This approach redefines medical education, preparing a new generation of physicians to influence positive change within the Kaiser Permanente system and in hospitals, homes, schools, workplaces and communities at large.