UNLV Kirk Kerkorian Medical Education Building

Despite years of explosive population growth, Southern Nevada has had a severe shortage of quality medical care. The Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV represents a new era for medicine in the Las Vegas valley. The first building and permanent home for the School is a 180,000 g.s.f. five-story building organized around strong circulation spines, which help to connect students to the exterior and orient them to locations in the building, and the major building functions: Training, Learning, Community and Service. The Training floor serves as the building base and houses Clinical Skills, Simulation, as well as Virtual and Gross Anatomy training programs. The collocation of these training spaces is unique in medical education and will serve to distinguish the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV. This P-shaped “superfloor” is a concrete podium supporting the 4-story tower above, and provides opportunities for secure outdoor gathering space. Community and Learning spaces are concentrated on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th floors, housing Student Life, the Learning Studios, Classrooms, and the Library. Those administrative functions that serve the students directly, or are related to Admissions, are located at the top of the Forum on the 3rd floor. The balance of the Serve function of the building, the Administrative offices and Dean’s Suite are located on the 5th floor. The massing of the building is oriented to maximize daylight and minimize direct solar gains with the integration of deep overhangs, brise soleil, and strategic glazing placement. The strong horizontality of the desert is emphasized in the building massing through the organization of the building cladding and glazing components, in particular the horizontal ribbing of the terracotta panels, which draws its inspiration from the jagged lines of EKG readouts. These panels also evoke the windswept sculpting of the walls at nearby Red Rock Canyon.