Healthcare Design - August 2018 - 16

MONITOR

2/5
The wellness center's
lobby includes wall panels and furnishings made
of chestnut white oak
that was harvested from
the building's site. Some
of those timbers were
hewn into large-scale
benches, including this
20-foot-long piece that's
adjacent to an indoor
rock garden.

tions of higher education. But until recently, the
buildings housing its student health and counseling
services weren't exactly top-tier. "Those facilities
were often inadequate and ineffectively aligned," says
Sue Wasiolek, Duke's assistant vice president for student affairs and dean of students. The student health
center was located in a remote area of Duke Hospital
South, counseling and psychological services were in a cramped space on
West Campus, and DuWell (health education, wellness promotion, and
risk mitigation) was in a basement in a building on East Campus, where
DukeReach (case management services) was also housed.
For students, that translated to a lot of walking from one location to another. "With the new center, the approach to their health is very holistic,
with wellness programs and other support services integrated alongside
physical and emotional health services under one roof," says Wasiolek.
The new consolidated Student Wellness Center (SWC) is an L-shaped,
three-story facility that opened in January 2017. The SWC-more commonly known on campus as "The Well"-sits on a formerly wooded site
adjacent to a main campus circulation path that connects student services,
housing, and athletics facilities.
In addition to giving the consolidated health services a high-profile, central location, the university invested $27 million to create an inviting environment that would attract students-whether they're sick or not. Hired to
design the building was Duda|Paine Architects (Durham, N.C.).
The center is Duda|Paine's fifth health-related project at Duke; its previous efforts include Duke Integrative Medicine and the Trent Semans
Center for Health Education. Those projects emphasized design that
brings the outside in and "provided a meaningful platform for us to expand strategies for using the physical environment to shape an experience that's both healing and relaxing," says Turan Duda, one of the firm's
founding principals.
For the 72,000-square-foot SWC, the result is a main entry experience
that features a glass, two-story atrium bringing in natural light and providing views of the outdoors, including the adjacent Duke forest. A monumental entry stair follows a translucent wall, anchoring the bright and airy
space and creating a soaring element that the designers say "emphasizes
the intersection of care, prevention, and social interaction in achieving
wellness," as it links the various services housed on the three floors.
Beyond that, the building's layout and adjacencies have been thoughtfully plotted to enhance the user experience. "Layers of discretion and privacy increase with each ascending floor," says Duda. Specifically, the ground
floor houses case management services, while student health is housed in

AUGUST 2018

A meditation garden
at the center includes a
precast labyrinth element in the foreground
and stone seating walls
and hanging pod chairs.
The facility's multipurpose space is at the left
in the background, with
staff lounge space on
the right.

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an open and inviting environment on the second floor. Psychological services and physical
therapy, which require the most discretion and
privacy, are on the top floor.
"The building provides programmatic spaces
that simultaneously support clinical care and
the promotion of healthy lifestyles," notes Jeffrey Paine, Duda|Paine's other founding principal. "Student health, for instance, includes 16
exam rooms, travel/immunization clinics, and
radiology. Two shared suites depart from traditional models of individual clinician offices to
facilitate staff collaboration."
Duke officials say the SWC has proven to be
a hit with both students and staff, pointing to
such metrics from its first year of operation as
a 6 percent increase in student health appointments, a 10 percent decrease in appointment
no-shows, and a 28 percent increase in walkin visits for counseling and psychological services.-Matthew Hall, freelance writer

ROBERT BENS ON PHOTOGRAPHY

UKE UNIVERSITY is one of the nation's elite institu-

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Healthcare Design - August 2018

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