The Texas A&M University architecture program’s longstanding relationship with the Dallas, Texas-based international architecture firm, HKS Inc., began with the firm’s 1939 founding by Harwood K. Smith, FAIA, a member of Texas A&M’s Class of 1936 and life-long supporter of Texas A&M architecture. Since 1971, the firm has served the Texas A&M College of Architecture in an advisory/teaching capacity, providing professional guidance in studio collaborations on myriad projects, especially within the area of health facilities design.

Three current HKS leaders, themselves graduates of the Texas A&M architecture program, share the late Harwood Smith’s commitment to advancing architectural education at their alma mater. These HKS officials, Ron Skaggs ’65, Joseph Sprague ’70, and Craig Beale ’71, have demonstrated their personal commitment to Texas A&M architecture by endowing three faculty positions focusing on healthcare architecture.

The endowments were established to elevate and further coordinate innovation, teaching, research and practice efforts, as they relate to improving the unique and internationally recognized architecture-for-health initiatives at Texas A&M University.

The positions — one chair and two professorships, now all fully funded — received faculty appointments in October 2006 from J. Thomas Regan, dean of the College of Architecture:

• George J. Mann, professor of architecture, was appointed as the Ronald L. Skaggs, FAIA and Joseph G. Sprague, FAIA Endowed Chair in Health Facilities Design;

• Roger Ulrich, professor of architecture, is holder of the Julie and Craig Beale ’71 Endowed Professorship in Health Facilities Design; and

• Susan Rodiek, professor of architecture and associate director of Texas A&M’s Center for Health Systems & Design, is holder of the Ronald L. Skaggs Endowed Professorship in Health Facilities Design, a position originally held by Mann.

About the donors

The donors behind these three unique endowed faculty positions are regular participants in the HKS studio collaborations with Texas A&M students. Recent collaborations have included a 269,000-square-foot medical center for Mansfield, Texas and the 1.2 million-square-foot Hatfield Hospital serving the London suburbs of Bedfordshire and Hertfordshire.

Ronald L. Skaggs, FAIA, FACHA, FHFI, is chairman of HKS, Inc. He directs the overall activities of the firm and serves as principal-in-charge of various healthcare projects. He has been with HKS for 39 years and is the founder of the HKS Healthcare Practice. He is currently a member of the American Architectural Foundation Board of Regents and on the board of the National Institute of Building Sciences. In 2000, he served as president of the American Institute of Architects. He is a fellow of the Health Facility Institute, a member of the American Hospital Association and past president of the Forum for Health Care Planning. He is also a trustee of the Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, served on the advisory board of the Construction Industry Presidents Forum, and is past chairman of the Development Council of the College of Architecture at Texas A&M University. Skaggs also holds a position as adjunct professor of architecture at Texas A&M University.

Joseph G. Sprague, FAIA, FACHA, FHFI, HKS principal and senior vice president, is director of HKS Health Facilities. He has more than 35 years experience designing hospitals and healthcare facilities. He was director of the Division of Design and Construction of the American Hospital Association in Chicago for 10 years. At HKS, Inc. he serves as technical advisor and health facilities principal. Most recently, Sprague was elected to the 2006 Board of Regents for the American College of Healthcare Architects (ACHA). In addition to being a fellow in the American Institute of Architects, a fellow in the American College of Healthcare Architects, and a fellow in the Health Facility Institute, he is past president of the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health. Sprague is also the president of the Facility Guidelines Institute and chairman of the “Guidelines for Design and Construction of Health Care Facilities,” an internationally recognized standard for designing health facilities. He is the author of numerous articles and chapters in books related to health facilities design and has chaired and lectured at hundreds of national and international conferences on health facility design.

Craig Beale, FAIA, FACHA, RIBA, CHE, CHC has created award-winning environments for the healthcare of millions of Americans. As HKS executive vice president and director of the HKS Healthcare Group, he is responsible for its overall organization, mission, and focus. Beale also oversees project implementation, while providing substantive input in the areas of functional and space planning, master planning, and facility design. Further, he serves on the board of directors of RyderHKS International Ltd., HKS’s sister firm in the United Kingdom.

Endowed architecture-for-health
faculty at Texas A&M University

The recently appointed endowed architecture-for-health faculty, George Mann, Susan Rodiek and Roger Ulrich, and their architecture-for-health colleagues at Texas A&M, all strive to undertake diverse, collaborative, cooperative, team-oriented projects on a national and international scale, and to advance Texas A&M University as a global leader in providing up-to-date health facilities for diverse populations around the world.

Professor George J. Mann, AIA, holder of the Ronald L. Skaggs, FAIA and Joseph G. Sprague, FAIA Endowed Chair in Health Facilities Design, joined Texas A&M University’s faculty in 1966. Together with Dr. Yasushi Nagasawa of the University of Tokyo, Mann founded the Global University Programs in Healthcare Architecture (GUPHA) in 1999. GUPHA’s objective is to help jump-start other university-based architecture for health programs around the world. Mann currently serves as president of GUPHA. Since 1974, he has been a member of the International Union of Architects - Public Health Group (UIA/PHG) in which he currently serves on the executive steering committee. He has been a member of the AIA Academy of Architecture for Health since 1970 and currently sits on its leadership committee.

In his 40 years at Texas A&M University, Mann has taught over 4,000 students, many of who now occupy leadership positions in architecture for health firms, hospitals, health facilities and universities around the world. Among these are Ronald L. Skaggs (who was in Mann’s first class at Texas A&M) and Joseph G. Sprague (who was in Mann’s fourth class).

Dr. Susan Rodiek, NCARB, the Ronald L. Skaggs Endowed Professorship in Health Facilities Design, is associate director of the Center for Health Systems & Design at Texas A&M’s College of Architecture. Rodiek is a registered architect with substantial practice experience. Her recent research has focused on quality of life issues in long-term care and healthcare settings, with a special emphasis on the therapeutic potential of outdoor space. In addition to teaching architectural design at the graduate and undergraduate levels at Texas A&M, Rodiek is currently developing a multimedia educational program to translate research into evidence-based design guidelines that can be easily applied by industry professionals. A prototype of this program, funded by National Institute on Aging SBIR Grant #R44 AG024786-02, has already won two international awards. She is active in several international and U.S.-based research organizations, and has published numerous articles and book chapters on health and aging-related topics.

Dr. Roger Ulrich, the Julie and Craig Beale ’71 Endowed Professorship in Health Facilities Design is the most cited and quoted researcher internationally in evidence-based healthcare design. Ulrich recently returned from research leave in London, where he was visiting professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture and advisor on evidence-based design to the UK Department of Health. He is a member of the board of directors of the Center for Health Facilities and Design. At Texas A&M University he teaches graduate seminars and courses on healthcare research and design. An active researcher, his work uses scientific methods to study the effects of medical buildings on patient and staff outcomes. Recently, he was a recipient of the Texas A&M University Association of Former Students Distinguished Achievement Award for Research. He and his associates have researched, for example, the effects of hospital window views on recovery from surgery, how hospital noise negatively impacts patients and staff, the effects of single versus multi-bed rooms on patient recovery and safety, and how healthcare gardens and art reduce patient stress and pain. This and other work is cited as an influence on the design of modern healthcare facilities around the world.

The Center for Health System & Design

Professors Mann, Rodiek, and Ulrich are all closely affiliated with the Center for Health Systems & Design (CHSD) at the Texas A&M College of Architecture, an interdisciplinary center housed jointly in Texas A&M colleges of Architecture and Medicine. These faculty members, along with 24 colleagues currently working in the health design program at Texas A&M, combine longstanding experience with a broad range of knowledge and interests to form a expert team promoting design for health at Texas A&M University. The center is the world’s largest collection of interdisciplinary faculty, students, and affiliated professionals committed to research and education about environments for healthcare. HKS, Inc. is one of 18 leading healthcare architecture firms that serve on the center’s Health Industry Advisory Council, supporting and advising the health design program at Texas A&M University.

A vital collaboration

The longstanding and growing collaborative relationship between Texas A&M and HKS Inc. has benefited both organizations, as well as the general public by improving the state of the art of health facilities design. In strengthening the connection between research, evidence-based architectural practices and architectural education, the collaboration provides for better architecture. The “case study approach” to teaching — taking on actual projects on actual sites with real clients — also provides the students with a smoother transition from school to practice.

In the health care research and design studio collaborations with HKS, Inc., students are challenged to create designs and research, which the firm’s representatives review and critique. As the firms may be able to utilize some of the students’ creative ideas, the interaction creates a think-tank research setting for the firms, while providing real-world experience for the students.

Since 1966, Mann, as well as other health related Texas A&M faculty and thousands of students in Texas A&M health design studios, has undertaken more than 500 actual architecture-for-health projects around the world. In addition to professors Mann, Rodiek and Ulrich, other faculty including Mardelle Shepley, Kirk Hamilton, Chang-Shan Huang, Joseph J. McGraw, and Jody Naderi, have taught scores of studios focusing on actual health projects.

Projects that Mann and his students have undertaken include the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston; the design of "surge" hospital facilities throughout the United States — alternative health facilities that address the "surge" of patients caused by catastrophic natural or manmade disasters; Project Orbis, a flying eye-care hospital in a converted DC-10 aircraft; the Asian Mercy Hospital Ship for Mercy Ships; MUHC-McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada; Hatfield Hospital in Hertfordshire, England; Scotty's House in Bryan, Texas; Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel; Scott and White Hospital in Temple, Texas; AMH American Mission Hospital in Bahrain; King Khalifa Women and Children's Hospital in Abu Dhabi; Project Mandy in Bryan, Texas; Houston Hospice; 10 Ronald McDonald Houses throughout the United States, and in Madrid and Stockholm; numerous urban and rural health centers throughout the developing world; a women’s shelter in Hempstead, Texas and a proposed Children's Hospital for North Korea.

With the creation of these three very significant endowed faculty positions in healthcare architecture, Texas A&M is positioned to accelerate its intellectual leadership and contributions toward improving architecture-for-health for those in need around the world.