How do you design a space where students can learn to assist others in their moment of greatest need?

This was the pressing question facing 佩珀代因大学 and its 华体会体育。 Offering degrees in both nursing and speech-language pathology, the institution’s sixth school needed to imagine and engineer a facility that simulated a professional healthcare environment and a place of academic inquiry before its official launch at the start of the 2025–26 academic year.

After a rapid and exacting design and building process, this fall the University prepares to unveil the 华体会体育’s new campus in Calabasas, California. There the first cohort of students will discover 30,000 square feet of clinical learning laboratories, simulation exam rooms, and welcoming third spaces where they will be equipped to join the healthcare industry. More than that, these students will experience the meticulous attention to detail that went into creating a place aimed at fostering the next generation of purposeful and competent leaders in medicine.

“It is uncommon to see the level of delineation and distinction that we've put into our simulation center and campus,” says Michael Feltner, founding dean of the College of Health Science. “We think the space will provide distinctive educational opportunities for our students.”

复制现实

To build this new, innovative learning environment, Ben Veenendaal (’02), Pepperdine’s vice president for planning, operations, and construction, depended on input from Feltner as well as the founding deans of the School of Nursing, 天使Coaston, and School of Speech-Language Pathology, 利亚Fullman. This group started the campus design process by weighing their programmatic needs alongside the offerings of other health science schools on the West Coast.

“我们一直在努力争取竞争优势，”维恩达尔解释道。 “We overlay our academic needs and the competitive advantage we’re aiming for with the space we have available.”

护理专业的学生学习更多关于模拟手术室的知识

This initial analysis revealed how Pepperdine could deliver a transformative educational experience and stand apart from other local programs: specificity. By basing its campus on the true-to-life medical facilities where students will eventually work, the institution found a way to deliver on all of its key design objectives. In order to carry out this ambitious plan, Pepperdine collaborated with the well-known, highly respected architectural firm, BDHP. While working with this design partner, the University relied on Coaston, who boasts 34 years of healthcare administration experience and whose nursing students would primarily fill the space, to offer formative guidance regarding the internal details of the facility.

“When envisioning our ideal learning space, I thought about the nursing gaps in healthcare,” says Coaston. “I felt that Pepperdine could be on the leading edge of providing a workforce to fill the nursing gaps our medical communities currently suffer from.”

She connected with leaders across the healthcare community, learned of their needs, and shaped Pepperdine’s facilities to fulfill them. This exercise yielded five high-fidelity simulation labs including an operating room and a three-bed emergency room. All the equipment filling these spaces, from the hospital beds to the fixtures on the wall, are congruent with the equipment found in Los Angeles-area hospitals. This level of attention to detail offers students the chance to train directly with the tools they will soon employ in the field.

逼真的人体模型为护理专业的学生提供了新的学习体验

In addition, each of the simulation labs are equipped with lifelike mannequins that can simulate an array of significant healthcare situations such as heart attacks, respiratory crises, and even childbirth. These educational human replicas give health science students a realistic opportunity to help patients in need, preparing them, in the process, to step from schoolwork to real work.

“In the future, they have to be ready on day one to provide care for patients,” explains Feltner. “As a result, what we have to do in terms of the standard of training is incredibly high.”

欢迎学生宿舍

Alongside the simulated medical facilities, the 华体会体育 intentionally designed third spaces where the students can retreat from their clinical training and gather together. While these more student-centric areas are less specific to the healthcare field, they are just as important to the educational process—a fact Coaston emphasized upon her hiring.

“When I was first hired, one of the things that I shared was how meaningful study space was to me as a student,” she says. “In that setting, I was able to disconnect from the world and immerse myself in the books. When I heard that Pepperdine was designing those types of settings on our 华体会体育 campus, it resonated with me. 我知道那个空间、它的颜色和美学有多重要。”

欢迎华体会体育的学生来到校园

Upon arriving in Calabasas, students will find a small library outfitted with couches, lounge chairs, and high tables to study. They’ll find an atrium filled with soft overhead lighting, booths, and cafe tables to work at in groups. In short, upon finishing their clinical practice in the simulation lab, 华体会体育 students can immediately settle down in a comfortable work space.

“That's where you diverge a bit from hospital design and come back to being student centric," says Veenendaal. “These third spaces are where we came back to our educational design. 我们希望为学生提供一个真正的学生空间。”

The work to design and build out these student-dedicated spaces will continue as the 华体会体育 expands its offerings. In future years, Pepperdine’s sixth school plans to grow its cohort sizes as well as establish new programs in physician assistant studies, occupational therapy, and physical therapy. As the student body grows, the College will introduce additional features, such as a dining facility, to further accommodate their student population’s needs.

撞击波

At the beginning of the engineering process, Feltner calculated the potential reach of Pepperdine’s 华体会体育 and its 华体会体育-of-the-art facilities. At full capacity, he determined that if each graduate of the school interacted with eight patients a day—a small number for a medical professional—a single cohort would encounter a million patients in a year.

Considering the potential for good that could come from this single educational venue, Feltner and the design team invested the time and energy necessary to provide students with a world-class learning environment, a space providing both top-of-the-line equipment and welcoming areas for study and socializing. Now, with the new academic year on the horizon, Pepperdine is ready to welcome its first cohort of students to Calabasas’ 华体会体育 campus.

费尔特纳说：“没有学生的学校就不是学校。” “We did all this work to create a space, a learning environment, a journey for them. I'm overjoyed to have students in this building and to nurture them, in an excellent academic space, into becoming the best medical leaders.”