Title: Duke University Student Wellness Center
Location of Proejct: Durham, NC
Project Completion Date: 3/24/2017
Firm Name: Duda|Paine

Short Description: The new Student Wellness Center brings clinical care and wellness programs into everyday life on Duke’s campus. The building is positioned along a primary circulation path connecting the main quad with athletic and recreation facilities, engaging the student population. Terra cotta rainscreens articulate the three clinic pods while a three-story atrium anchors the corner allowing for natural light and extensive views. A monumental stair links different levels within the atrium, weaving together stone and site-harvested wood finishes providing a connection to the outdoors. The timber-framed space brings in natural light by day and transforms into a beacon at night.

Architect's Statement: The Student Wellness Center weaves student life and health together in visionary ways to replace the dated student infirmary with architecture that encourages self-care, relaxation, revitalization, and wellness. Multiple medical and psychological services, which existed in disjointed corners of the university, were consolidated and merged with programs for the mind, body, spirit, and prevention.
The design of the Student Health and Wellness Center sought to include specific characteristics: a welcoming and inspiring entrance congruent with the healing process; many windows, where natural light can enter and provide a restorative effect; an outdoor area with a meditation/herb garden and labyrinth to promote reflection and relaxation; and an environment where students would seek refuge from the stressors of daily life and find themselves inspired to focus on their health and well-being.
The site and its location on campus were primary drivers for creating nexus between three realms of the student experience: student life, athletics, and academic study. The facility’s vision was to complement and link wellness with these programs and the surrounding natural environs. A transparent three-story lobby—with a graceful timber frame—welcomes students and creates a warm and enriching environment. The space also serves as an orientating ‘umbrella’ under which clinical, health, and wellness resources come together.
The building form was driven from the inside out to maximize operational efficiencies and create synergies between departments. Open-plan, shared provider offices transformed the departments’ past work practices by fostering collaboration and collective problem-solving. A shared staff lounge promotes informal exchanges and cooperation.
Visitors won’t find a registration desk. Instead, integrated wayfinding elements and a monumental, interconnecting stair facilitate movement to different service offerings. The stair’s openness supports the lobby’s social sensibilities and allows views to and from all levels. Duke also envisioned better student outcomes resulting from a better work experience for staff, reversing a trend for clinics to be tucked away in spaces lacking natural light and views. Every space uses daylight to make students and staff feel better psychologically and physiologically. A contemplative garden reinforces connections to nature and reaches out to campus circulation paths. The building footprint was reduced to minimize the project’s environmental impact, and oak harvested from the site was locally milled and used extensively for interior veneered surfaces.
The Center’s sensitive response to the human condition has led to its vast popularity with students. Duke has seen a positive change in all metrics for student use, with students coming in even when they aren’t sick.
The primary structure of the 71,900 SF three-story project is steel framing with concrete floor plates. However, the Center is actually three buildings in one, with wood used as a dominant unifying material. A three-level living room is the project’s primary organizing element at the intersection of Towerview Road and Union Drive. A super-structure of glulam columns and beams wraps this volume in wood, creating a sense of lightness and echoing the site’s adjacent forest. The main building volume on Towerview Road is characterized by a terra cotta screening supported by a cast-in-place concrete base. A single-story Wellness Pavilion at the other end of the ‘living room’ holds shared project amenities. Glass, metal panels, and glulam columns define this pavilion, with an additional layer of ceramic frit employed to address glare and privacy. Thoughtfully framed views, extensive glazing, clerestory lighting, a garden of loose river rock, and careful attention to the selection of flooring and paving materials in this space all enhance the seamless merging of indoors and outdoors. In addition, the use of site-harvested wood, locally milled and constructed for interior finishes and furnishings, imparts warmth and provides a backdrop for students studying, socializing, or simply hanging out.
The Entry Pavilion brings materials from the outdoors in, including a slate and loose-fill river rock floor on the plane with the exterior courtyard flooring. Rough texture bark wood echoes the adjacent historic Anderson Forest. The super-structure of glulam timbers further highlights material and physical connections to nature. Vertical wood louvers and fritted glass offer solar shading and privacy screening. The main building’s exterior façade is articulated in three tower elements made of curtainwall glass and a terra cotta rain screen system in two-toned gray that contextually relates to the palette of historical stone on campus.