April 23, 2018

$230M Population Health building designed as a laboratory for ideas

Renderings by The Miller Hull Partnership/SiteWorkshop [enlarge]

The building could have neighborhood-oriented space along 15th Avenue Northeast.

[enlarge]

The Population Health Facility will be near the western entrance to the UW’s main campus.

The University of Washington will break ground Wednesday on a $230 million building for its 2-year-old Population Health Initiative, and says it is designed to be a laboratory for ideas and encourage collaboration.

The 290,000-square-foot Population Health Facility is slated for a site along the east side of 15th Avenue Northeast, west of Architecture Hall. It is being built where the three Guthrie Hall annexes once stood, and should be finished in spring 2020.

Construction staff are using the fourth annex, north of Architecture Hall, as a job office.

The Population Health Initiative is an effort to help all people live healthier and more fulfilling lives. UW says population health revolves around three pillars: human health, environmental resilience, and social and economic equity.

The UW said the “progressive design-build team” of The Miller Hull Partnership and Lease Crutcher Lewis will create a LEED gold structure that reflects the values of the initiative. Progressive design-build has elements of integrated project delivery, and lean design and construction. Stakeholders, consultants and subcontractors have been brought on early to streamline the schedule.

The building will have single- and multiple-occupancy offices, open work stations, group work areas, conference space, instructional space, computer labs, and potentially some street-facing community-oriented space along 15th to help activate the area.

Type I-B construction will be used on the eight-story building, which will have two partial basement floors on the south end.

Other team members are: SiteWorkshop and CMG, landscape architects; KPFF, civil and structural engineer; AEI and VECA, electrical; and PAE and Hermanson, mechanical.

The building will house the Department of Global Health, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, and portions of the School of Public Health — all of which are in various locations throughout the city. Researchers will investigate biomedical, social behavioral, cultural, environmental and physical factors.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is providing $210 million in funding.