The Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art campus in Bentonville, Arkansas, touts a growing list of buildings by powerhouse firms. Safdie Architects and Marlon Blackwell Architects have both completed handsome commissions at the sprawling 134-acre site founded in 2011 by the Walton family.
Another building just completed at Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, this time by local practice Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects and OSD. The Alice T. Walton School of Medicine opened its doors to its inaugural class of 48 medical student this week. The building’s striking design was largely informed by Ozark geology, most notably its rocks, mountainous terrain, and verdant landscapes.
Renderings of the Alice T. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) were shared in 2022, as reported by AN. The 154,000-square-foot facility sits near Heartland Whole Health Institute by Marlon Blackwell Architects and the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art building by Safdie Architects.
“Creatively embodying the principles of whole health, Alice L. Walton School of Medicine is designed to transform the future of medical education, transcending traditional boundaries between art, architecture, nature and wellness,” said Wesley Walls, a principal at Polk Stanley Wilcox.
“The building emerges from the landscape as a link between nature and community, its unique form and materials creating an academic environment purposefully designed to challenge convention and foster innovation in advancing a new health care model for the twenty-first century,” Walls added.
Deep steel trusses measuring two stories define the building’s primary structure. There’s approximately 8,000 square feet of perforated brass sunshades to help shade the facility. The 4-story building has a library, simulation center, clinical skills center, anatomy resource renter, and a maker space. Coursework will prepare students to become future researchers, scientists, doctors.
A dramatic front corner entry establishes the building among a verdant campus. There, a protective canopy inspired by local natural limestone bluff shelters commands prescence. Sloped glazing, a brass soffit with a satin finish, and precast concrete make up much of the facade.
Outside, over 550 new trees and 140,000 native plants were added. Informed by empirical studies that prove nature access can reduce blood pressure, OSD ideated a series of trails, a community lawn, a tulip poplar walkway, ponds, healing gardens, meditation terraces, outdoor classrooms, and a woodland amphitheater.
“With AWSOM teaching students to proactively treat the whole person, it became clear that a new type of physical environment for health is needed—one that abandons the old formula of a building in a sea of parking, and instead brings us back in balance with the numerous benefits of nature, community, and art,” noted Simon David, OSD principal and creative director.
“In this way, the AWSOM landscape is a physical manifestation of whole health principles. The landscape absorbs site and building into one, extending into the paths and woodlands of Crystal Bridges,” David elaborated.
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