Houston, TX (07 October 2011) – An opening ceremony was held for the new Health Sciences and Nursing Building at The University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) on Thursday, 29 September 2011. Designed by the Houston office of PageSoutherlandPage, the 130,000-square-foot health sciences complex has been one of the most anticipated new buildings on campus.
The $60 million, five-story building reflects and supports an integrated vision of healthcare education and provides space to house 3,000 students and 100 faculty members from the College of Health Sciences and the School of Nursing. Completed in time for the Fall 2011 semester, this state-of-art facility contains instructional, research and laboratory spaces, including the 16,000-square-foot Simulation Center to teach essential nursing skills in actual clinical settings.
The design of the Health Sciences and Nursing Building reflects the distinctive “Bhutanese” architectural style of the UTEP campus. While conducting extensive research on the history and elements of Bhutanese architecture, the PageSoutherlandPage design team discovered the design standards of the Department of Urban Development and Engineering Services (DUDES) of the Bhutanese Government. The standards revealed rules on how each of these elements could and should be used on buildings and resulted in the design of a different roof type for this building, as well as increasing the amount of exterior glass, bringing daylight deep into the inside of the building.
The Health Sciences and Nursing Building was the first to be designed on campus following the design standards of the Bhutanese Government while also respecting and balancing the history of the UTEP campus. Implementing these standards allowed the design team to highlight a number of elements that had never been used on campus, including a lung-go roof, gomang and nimchong rabsels (sunrooms). Placing the sunroom in its correct place, facing east, helps block the morning sun, but also brings in light to the entry courtyard. The combination of new architectural elements on the exterior and state-of-the-art instructional spaces make this building an important new addition to the University of Texas at El Paso campus.
PageSoutherlandPage provided architecture and engineering services and associated on the project with the El Paso-based architecture firm, Carl Daniel Architects, and RCG Architects of Baltimore. Vaughn Construction was the contractor for the new building. PageSoutherlandPage team members included:
John Clegg, Bob Mease, Bill Echterling, Luis Reyes, Art Chavez, Dimitra Papadia, Ozge Gulec, Kim Hegarty, Octavio Govea, Sebastian Asvaraksh, Darrell Widner, Ernie Galvan, Omi Hernandez, Brett Wilbur, Bill Chalmers, Jeff Ewin, Jose Gonzalez, Denise Flores, Larry Flauteros, Randy Hurst, Noe Pena, Anthony Jaspal, Cyril Unger, Ben Clemons, Joanna Yaghooti, Brice Wilborn, Laura Padilla and Andy Phan.
Media Contact: Nancy Acker Fleshman - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
