Rutgers University

Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy Building Addition

Piscataway, New Jersey

Size
60,000 gsf

Services
Programming
Laboratory Planning
Architecture

Roles
Ellenzweig
Design Architect and Laboratory Planner

Clarke Caton Hintz
Architect of Record

Certifications
Designed to meet LEED Silver

The two-story addition to the Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy building provides a new identity and front door for the School, transforming its presence on the Busch campus.

The project supports the goals of the School of Pharmacy to be a leader in pharmacy education. The addition provides facilities that support the latest technologies and practices of the pharmacy industry and a welcoming, collaborative environment for its students. The first floor allows for views into the new community practice suite, lecture halls, and light-filled Commons that links the existing building to the addition and serves as a social hub. The second floor, which opens to the Commons, features a clinical skills/exam room suite and simulation suite, classrooms, a mock admixture room for training students in preparing sterile intravenous medications, break-out and collaboration spaces, and the administrative suite.

The Commons receives ample daylight through a linear skylight over the main connector between the new entry and the existing building.

Specialized pharmacy learning spaces that were not available in the existing building include a sterile compounding lab, clinical simulation suite with control room, clinical skills/exam room suite, and patient interaction lab, as well as large-format learning spaces that can accommodate a full class at one time.

With its spacious central commons as well as numerous team meeting rooms support collaborative learning and informal interaction, the building has become an informal gathering place for students across the health science disciplines.

At first, we thought primarily about teaching spaces, and it was through our discussions with the architect that we began to understand the potential of large open spaces and smaller spaces to enable students to study on site—and even more importantly, to enable our students to join one another in a community.

Carol S. Goldin, Ph.D.
Senior Associate Dean for Planning and Assessment

Rutgers University Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy