Health and Learning Center
Strengthening wellness culture and rejuvenating recreation
- Client
- Northern Arizona University
- Location
- Flagstaff, Arizona, United States
- Size
- 60,000 square feet
- Status
- Completed
Northern Arizona University proved an early champion of integrated and holistic wellness design with their visionary Health and Learning Center. The building is deeply student-focused, connecting student recreation and health programs, academic spaces, a medical clinic, classrooms and an athletic component.
The center replaced a previous building characterized as introverted, dark and disconnected, with a visionary space that creates connectivity to the rest of the pedestrian-friendly campus, effectively eliminating the previous project area’s island-like feel. Through these design efforts and more, the Health and Wellness Center has become a hub for dynamic student experiences on the campus.
The center is robust in its wellness resources with medical spaces, areas for group exercise, an indoor elevated jogging track, a climbing wall, gymnasiums and locker rooms. Elsewhere, the building boasts a clinic, urgent care, pharmacy, lab, x-ray, counseling space, employee assistance areas and a health service suite. Not only can students practice wellness in the building, they are also educated around diet, massage, prevention, awareness and fitness.
Stronger financial health
Our design team considered numerous possibilities for the Health and Learning Center. Ultimately, the project helped consolidate five previously disparate buildings and saved the university more than $20 million based on original addition plans developed. Beyond this cost savings, the building better empowers the university to realize its vision of holistic student wellness and academic success as an incredible epicenter where students enhance their mind, body and spirit.