Title: Clemson University Student Health Center
Location of Proejct: Clemson, SC
Project Completion Date: May 2021
Firm Name:

Short Description: Located on the Clemson University Campus perimeter just north of Memorial Stadium and the main campus recreation center sits the new Student Health Center that strives to be an innovative health care clinic providing integrated quality services that are responsive to the needs of the University community. This project explored how the facility can provide a setting that is accessible, welcoming and promotes health and wellness. The primary project goals were to fit into the greater campus community, preserve existing mature oak trees and provide a space for evolutionary changes in the facility to accommodate surge demands.

Architect's Statement: At the heart of Clemson Campus, life is the outdoor culture you see it as you walk the perimeter along the fields spread across campus. People are scattered playing spike ball, sunbathing, completing assignments, and participating in intramural sports. At the edge of all of this is an existing intramural field that is the location of the project. It is perfectly situated adjacent to the main campus recreation center and known as a common tailgating spot for weekend football festivities. This new location for the student health center serves both the campus needs to improve the health and wellness of its students and staff population while also providing healthcare to the surrounding community by being located on the perimeter of campus visible to heavy traffic coming off an arterial road. The 73,000 square foot project supports Clemson health service programs, including five medical clinics: women’s, sports, and general clinics, counseling and human development, diagnostic, as well as wellness and education. The building's main treatment spaces are organized in two bars with a circulation spine that doubles as a central lobby with spaces for informal consultations and waiting nooks.

The design embodies the duality of its function, accommodating staff needs in one administrative wing and then integrating various clinic modules in a separate wing. The simple circulation pattern helps to inform students as they navigate around the facility with wayfinding tools such as color and repetitive modules to support students understanding of the sequence of activities from arrival to destination. Further explorations of connectivity to the outdoors are demonstrated through the atrium spine that acts as a pedestrian bridge funneling in students from core campus. Utilizing the natural foliage provided by the existing mature oak trees around the perimeter of the site to the southern end, the pergola helps guide students throughout the facility by creating a connection between the indoors and outdoors. The two entry plazas provide the connective circulation space that celebrates Clemson’s outdoor culture and encourages movement, promoting the facility's core values of health and wellness.

The center’s highly active programmatic spaces: the yoga studio, demonstration kitchen, and classrooms are organized along the pedestrian-oriented edge with support spaces closer to the core. These active spaces are in highly visible areas of the building, enhanced by substantial use of glass. The resulting transparency contributes to increased connectivity to the other recreational activities around, as well as to the campus. The plaza provides a gateway presence to the pedestrian nature of Heisman St along with the health and wellness core. The building's other programmatic goals were to provide high quality and culturally relevant healthcare, provide a lean and flexible care environment that was resilient to change and, promote environmental health that will help create a healthier and sustainable campus.

As one of the goals was to fit into the greater campus plan Clemson University strives to increase the number of heavy timber construction building types on their campus to promote more sustainable building methods. This building uses a hybrid construction system of heavy timber within the atrium combined with light gauge steel framing on the clinical bars. The separation of the two building blocks connected by an atrium opens up a plaza on either end, one facing the greater campus area and the other welcoming the community outside of campus. The skin of the building continues the rhythm of the warm nature of the heavy timber explored within the atrium by using perforated Corten steel panels and an insulated metal panel colored and weathered similarly to imitate the color palette of the campus which is comprised of an inconsistent red brick. The dichotomy between the steel and wood is constantly exposed and celebrated throughout the building through the column and floor details and specifically in the roof detail in the atrium which acts as a replica of the system outside further engaging the outdoors and indoors and increasing the connectivity between the two spaces.

The intent of every space is to give students a sense of comfort as they traverse the paths of college life that lead them to the health center. In locating the counseling center at the top, the building is stacked to provide care for students' bodies and minds with each level having its spaces for quiet and respite. In key locations the building is punctuated by skylights and courtyards, providing each care team access to daylight and views to nature to improve their work environment. The design imbues a place where students, staff, and healthcare workers have a support network to successfully achieve their health and wellness goals.