Photographs by Sam Fentress
The Washington University School of Medicine is at a crossroads.
Its new Farrell Learning and Teaching Center, plunked on a city street at the corner of Scott and Euclid in the Central West End, links the medical school’s prestigious past with its vision of the future. A light-infused atrium connects the School of Medicine’s original home (the North Building, a stately brick structure erected in 1913) with the six-story Farrell Center (a high-tech medical-teaching facility completed in September 2005).
The result is a public space that feels less like a sterile medical facility and more like a posh hotel in New York or San Francisco.
The entryway embraces visitors with its towering glass walls, limestone floor and café that features bistro dining sets and cozy cyberbooths. The second-floor lounge area boasts a black baby grand piano and club chairs, computer kiosks on a balcony overlooking the atrium, and a gathering room with a gas fireplace and views of Forest Park.
Aesthetically, the architecture of the first and second floors unites the medical school’s past, present and future. The north wall is the exposed exterior brick of the historic North Building, which houses administrative offices and an anatomy lab in the basement. The new center’s atrium serves as a front door, welcoming students and faculty. High-tech amenities—computerized multimedia, stand-up computer kiosks on three floors and wireless Internet access even in the second-floor hearth room—secure the school’s status in the new millennium.
Timeless materials such as cherrywood and natural stone contrast with stainless steel and contemporary décor to further strengthen the marriage.
To achieve such harmony, the university collaborated with St. Louis–based design firm HOK Inc. and local builder Paric Corp., giving careful directions about what was needed from this 108,000-square-foot center.
“It is our thoroughfare,” says Alison J. Whelan, M.D., associate dean for the Office of Medical Student Education at Wash. U., sitting in her office in the medical school’s old North Building. “It is literally a crossroads that blends the old with the new.”
It also encourages mingling between students and faculty, be it a chance encounter while ordering a Starbucks coffee or vegetarian wrap from the café or a smattering of students basking in the glorious notes of the baby grand. “Informal gatherings break down the barriers,” Whelan says, “and make everyone feel like an important part of the community.”
Set amid streams of natural light and a soothing neutral backdrop of taupe, beiges and smoky blues, the second-floor hearth hosts impromptu game nights, late-night coffee klatches, marathon study sessions, spur-of-the-moment comedy, casual concerts, art exhibits and spontaneous naps in plush oversized chairs.
Art niches throughout invite admiration for the center’s rotating—and growing—collection of medical-themed pieces, from oils on canvas to mixed-media collages to black-and-white photography.
One of the most intriguing creations is “Endometrial Adenocarcinoma I and II,” by Dr. Paul Goodfellow, a Wash. U. professor of genetics, surgery and obstetrics and gynecology, and his wife, artist Carol Stewart. The work incorporates DNA gel analyses and colorized pictures of tumors.
“It’s important to have art,” Whelan says. “It shows the human side of science.”
On the third floor and beyond, the center provides students and faculty with state-of-the-art learning facilities that match the School of Medicine’s world-class reputation. Advanced technology accommodates the use of individual laptops, extensive audio and visual presentations and other high-tech learning tools.
Teaching areas come equipped with retractable walls, furniture on casters and suggested room layouts to cater to specific lesson plans. Commercial-grade carpet permits easy cleanup in the facility’s wet and dry laboratories. Bright study areas provide students with desks and storage units, a kitchenette and casual areas for quick breaks (the board game “Operation” is a favorite diversion).
The learning section also includes a clinical-skills suite that allows students to practice examinations in mock doctors’ offices. From behind one-way mirrors, microphones and cameras record student physicians’ interactions with actors who portray patients in real-life scenarios. The students may be tending to a broken bone, inquiring about a person’s sexual history or breaking the news of a terminal illness.
For Steven Sperry, 24, a second-year student from southeast Georgia, the Farrell Learning and Teaching Center is a different kind of crossroads: It represents the accomplishments that earned him a spot at one of the country’s top medical schools, his dreams of success in the medical field and his current life.
He eats at the center, checks his e-mail, attends classes, bonds with other students, relaxes, studies, takes in any entertainment that’s offered. “Basically, I live here,” Sperry says during a study break. “It’s a home.”
