Specialty Environments Medical Education
Who We Are
A Source of New Ideas for Positive Change
The FCA team is made up of dedicated professionals with deep expertise designing spaces to learn. With over 70 years of experience in designing higher education facilities—including schools of nursing and medicine— we bring a rich legacy of knowledge and innovation to every project. We specialize in working with our clients to create design solutions that prioritize the human experience, aiming to positively impact the lives of everyone who uses our facilities.
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PROJECT SPOTLIGHT
Southern Connecticut State University
Health & Human Services Building
New Haven, CT 94,750 SF
Health and Human Services Building
Southern Connecticut State University’s new Health & Human Services Building supports the University’s goal of fostering interdisciplinary teaching and research while enhancing the student experience in healthrelated fields.
This 94,750-square-foot, four-story facility brings together multiple departments into one collaborative space. Commissioned by the Connecticut State Department of Administrative Services, the project was a joint effort between the State, the University, Svigals + Partners, an FCA Company, and Little Diversified Architectural Consulting.
The building features administrative offices, nursing simulation labs, classrooms, clinical and therapy spaces, exercise science labs, and dedicated areas for programs such as communication disorders, social work, public health, and more.
Designed to inspire and engage, the space includes natural light, collaborative zones, modern teaching labs, lecture halls, a demonstration kitchen, and human performance labs. The result is a vibrant, innovative environment that exceeds the University’s aspirations.
Learning Lab for small group based activities.
Spaces for Learning
To support the university’s central goal of unifying eight separate healthcare facilities, the design team prioritized creating integrated learning environments. Through a highly collaborative process involving stakeholders from across the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities System and Southern Connecticut State University, the team developed spaces that reflect each department’s mission while fostering shared resources and interdisciplinary synergy.
Key design principles for learning spaces included:
– Clinical, active learning environments tailored to health sciences education.
– Flexible, multi-use spaces that support cross-disciplinary teaching and learning.
– Movement-oriented zones designed to accommodate self-study, group collaboration, team-based activities, and informal student interaction.
Classrooms are multifunctional with rich AV and configurable furnishings.
Facilities to train the next generation of home care providers.
Simulation lab environments that mirror reality.
Simulation lab environments that mimic hospital and exam.
Central command centers.
Visible, interconnected spaces for learning.
Spaces to connect and rejuvinate.
Yale University School
of Nursing
Simulation Center
New Haven, CT
12,000 SF
The Yale School of Nursing Simulation Center Expansion is an innovative enhancement to the University’s existing simulation program. The center now includes a standardized patient lab with digital capture and playback, and a home care lab that doubles as a psychiatric simulation lab.
Throughout the design process, our team was presented with a number of challenges that required creative solutions. For example, the layout had to adjust to the unique structural conditions of the existing building. Along with these adjustments, the design team was challenged with making sure that the newly renovated space, was homogeneous with the overall design of the campus.
As a result of the careful considerations and attention to the campus’ integrity, the design team was able to create a high fidelity standardized patient area, allowing students the opportunity to be as close as they can to real world experience while still being in an educational setting that allows for close observation and critique.
Debrief and clinical simulation spaces.
Hackensack Meridian Health
School of Medicine Master Plan & Implementation
Nutley, NJ
240,000 SF
Hackensack Meridian Health needed not just a new brand identity for their space but also needed to find the room for a large flexible classroom, a learning studio, 12 tutoring rooms and offices for administrative functions. A determination of needs was made by combining observation, an inventory of space use by room, comparative benchmarking analysis, stakeholder interviews, and best practices. Dean Stanton provided one-on-one time to share her vision for the School and direction for prioritizing resources. Dr. Stanton also participated in a joint workshop with her Executive Cabinet to discuss challenges and opportunities from their respective areas of expertise. In addition, interviews were conducted with twenty (20) faculty and staff members.
Based on a data-driven analysis the team identified significant space needs that will be critical to support the SOM’s enrollment, maintaining a competitive position in the marketplace, and remaining outfitted to deliver a TBL pedagogy: utilize the available space in the 4300 and 4500 Pod for academic spaces; secure the use of 4100 Pod and strategically infill the 4200 and 4400 Pods for use by the SOM as administrative, office, and conference space; plan for the Center for Discovery and Innovation’s research space expansion on levels 5 and 6 as highly sought primary investigators (PI’s) are recruited.
Spaces to study, connect, and work collaboratively.
St. Luke’s University Health Network
Graduate Medical Education Expansion
Easton, PA
20,000 SF
St. Luke’s University Health Network in partnership with Temple University is working with FCA to expand their Graduate Medical Education footprint to their Anderson Campus.
This 20,000 SF space is being housed in a larger 190,000 SF hospital expansion that is currently under construction. The GME space consists of a 150-person auditorium, numerous classrooms, conference rooms, a café and study lounge.
Student amenities and multifunctional classrooms.
Camden County College
Comprehensive Space Needs Program / Campus Master Plan
Camden, NJ 13,000 SF
Comprehensive planning including labs and a library.
School of Nursing Space Use Analysis
Space Use Summary
Camden County College, in partnership with Virtua Health System, engaged FCA to complete a $2M Comprehensive Space Needs Program and Campus Master Plan. In addition to focusing on the College’s Nursing Program study included needs assessments of Virtua’s EMT Training, Clinical Learning, AHA Certification Program, and a Simulation Center. The combined programs offer a dynamic synergy and are to be located on a firmer hospital site - a Health Education Campus.
Space Types
The School of Nursing occupies approximately 8,740 net square feet (nsf) on the 5th floor of the pavilion building at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Camden, NJ. The school enrolls a class cohort of sixty (60) students twice a year in a diploma granting nursing program approved by the New Jersey Board of Nursing and accredited by the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing, Inc.
Classroom Instruction Spaces
The SON instruction spaces include three (3) classrooms (3,400 nsf) used for didactic delivery in a student-centered or task-based learning model. Movable tables and chairs allow faculty to cycle between focused lecture segments and collaborative small group work within the same class session (Figure 3).
Skills Training / Simulation Lab
The hands-on aspects of the SON curriculum is delivered in a large classroom that has been adapted to accommodate patient beds, nursing stations, and other medical equipment necessary for non-clinical skills training and demonstration. In order to accommodate a class cohort of sixty (60) students,
Figure 2 Existing Our Lady of Lourdes School of Nursing 5th Floor Pavilion Floor Plan (above) & Space Use Summary (below)
University of New Haven
Bergami Center for Science, Technology, & Integration
New Haven, CT
45,500 SF
Classrooms that can adapt to class sizes.
The Bergami Center at the University of New Haven is designed to foster collaborative, interdisciplinary learning.
Connected to the Buckman Building, the LEED Gold facility features flexible classrooms with writable, movable walls, huddle spaces, a teaching auditorium, and a central atrium with a café. Visioning workshops with faculty, students, and staff shaped a dynamic environment that encourages creativity and connection. Integrated artwork reflects the evolution of ideas, reinforcing the center’s role as a vibrant campus crossroads.
Collaboration and study spaces organized around a light filled central hub.
