UTHealth Houston, School of Public Health

The School of Public Health is the embodiment of the “Health Without Boundaries” vision, encouraging students and researchers to think bigger and bolder, recognizing that public health is more complicated than ever. The new facility is located at UTHealth Houston, a comprehensive academic health center located within Texas Medical Center, the largest medical campus in the world. The team of SmithGroup and Kirksey was engaged by UTHealth to design the new Public Health Education and Research Building. 

Strategically located adjacent to the Texas Medical Center’s innovative TMC3 campus, this new 10-story Public Health Education and Research Building will provide learning, research and community engagement opportunities to grow the departments of Biostatistics and Data Science; Epidemiology, Human Genetics and Environmental Sciences; Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences; and Management, Policy and Community Health.  

The ground level provides meaningful spaces to engage with the community.  In addition to a simulation center and seminar rooms, the first floor houses a connected teaching garden, kitchen and clinic to support community education in nutrition. Lower and mid-levels feature labs and instructional space, while the upper levels house faculty offices and meeting space for each academic department. Collaboration spaces are dispersed across each floor to encourage connections between departments, while a large entry plaza and upper-level terrace engage the outdoors to promote wellness through connection to nature.  With six dispersed campuses for the School of Public Health, seminar rooms provide the technology to connect to all campuses virtually.