Architecture for Health

Student travels to Japan, receives GUPHA award
on behalf of fellow students for design project

Design concepts of a new facility for the Texas A&M University System Health Science Center, created by a team of Texas A&M architecture students, won in a worldwide competition sponsored by the Global University Programs in Healthcare Architecture.

The design, by Brian Briscoe, Tina Pruett and Robert Gardner, seniors in the Bachelor of Environmental Design program, won the 2007 Global Student Competition for Design of Architecture for Health.

Other competition winners included student design teams from Malaysia, China, England and The Netherlands.

“We are pleased to receive this award,” said Briscoe. “It shows the push toward healthcare architecture becoming very international.” Briscoe, sponsored by GUPHA, traveled to the 5th International GUPHA Forum at the University of Tokyo to accept the award on behalf of the A&M team. He is a fourth-year architectural design student from Kingwood.

George J. Mann, AIA, holder of the Ronald L. Skaggs, FAIA and Joseph G. Sprague, FAIA Endowed Chair in Health Facilities Design, founded GUPHA in 1999 with Dr. Yasushi Nagasawa of the University of Tokyo. Mann was the keynote speaker at the GUPHA forum.

The Texas A&M student design for the Health Science Center was also used by a team of construction science students as the basis of their final class project. That project, undertaken by Ryan Carter, Matt Long and Katie Simpson, involved creating a construction book detailing the design’s construction with cost and material estimates.

GUPHA was created to provide a forum for the exchange and dissemination of the ideas and experience of member organizations. The organization promotes cooperation and shared knowledge in planning of modernizing health and social care facilities. It has grown from three universities to more than 30, and has approximately 300 members from architecture, health practice and construction, as well as academia.