HOK Unveils Buffalo Medical School Design
BUFFALO, N.Y. — The design for the new School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences building on the University at Buffalo’s (UB) Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus was unveiled in early April.
New York-based HOK designed the seven-story, 550,000-square-foot medical school, and it will be one of the largest buildings constructed in Buffalo in decades. The design features two L-shaped structures that link together to create a six-story, glass atrium, which has connecting bridges and a stairway. The atrium will feature extensive daylighting elements due to the skylights and two glass walls.
Designed for LEED Gold certification, the building includes a façade clad with a high-performance, terra-cotta rain-screen and a glass curtainwall system. The design also brings the NFTA Allen Street transit hub into the medical school’s ground floor, providing easier access to mass transit for patients and staff.
“HOK’s design for UB’s medical school creates the heart for the new Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus, while integrating and connecting to the surrounding communities,” said Kenneth Drucker, FAIA, design principal for the project and design director for HOK’s New York office, in a statement. “The building’s atrium will be the focal point for bringing together clinical, basic sciences and education uses fostering collaboration.”
The new medical school is part of the UB 2020 strategic plan to create a world-class medical school with superior faculty-physicians that make it a major destination for innovative medical care and research. It will now be able to expand its class size from 140 to 180, as well as hire more faculty members.
The building’s first two floors will house multipurpose educational and community spaces for medical school and community outreach programs. A second-floor bridge will link to the new John R. Oishei Children’s Hospital and the Conventus medical office building. The third, fourth and fifth floors of the school will include research facilities and about 150,000 square feet of research laboratories.
On the sixth floor, there will be advanced specialized medical education facilities, such as an expanded patient care simulation center and a surgical simulation center. A robotic simulation center will be available to train students and physicians in remote surgery technologies. The seventh floor will house gross anatomy facilities.
Ground breaking on the $375 million medical school is scheduled for September 2013, with a scheduled completion date in 2016.