SoA Students and faculty participated in the 2022 AIA Academy of Architecture for Health STERIS Student Design Charette in San Antonio, TX. This annual event brings students of architecture to encourage and celebrate innovative thinking about health environments at the Healthcare Design Conference. The theme for this year’s charette was “Coupling Traumatic Care with HealthCare: A New Pediatric Specialty Clinic”, with the site located in east San Antonio, adjacent to ChildSafe, the county’s children’s advocacy center, and Martin Luther King Park, a large public park and greenway along the Salado Creek.

Student teams from Clemson University, the University of Kansas, the University of Florida, and the University of Utah were working on a 30,000 sq ft program that combines primary care spaces with specialty care including Women, Infant & Children (WIC), dentistry, mental health, and pharmacy.

Representatives for the SoA included students Naren Anandh (Master of Architecture graduate student), Jodie Levitt (Master of Science in Architectural Studies graduate student), Toph Tribe (Master of Architecture graduate student), and Pete Vawdry (Bachelor of Science in Architectural Studies undergraduate student), who were led by Assistant Professor Valerie Greer. Our students took an ethnographic approach to the design problem and presented their project through the stories of four families who might use the pediatric clinic they designed. They focused on the importance of play and being “in motion” in response to trauma, which drove the design proposal.

   

The SoA would like to thank the organizing committee members Graham Sinclair, Renee Fiala, Victoria Villarreal, and Sara Shumbera. We would also like to thank sponsors from the American Institute of Architects Academy of Architecture for Health, STERIS, MillerKnoll, Emerald Expositions, American College of Healthcare Architects, and the Overland (host firm).