Forging New Career Pathways: Texas A&M San Antonio Public Health and Education Building

Architecture, Higher Education, Interior Design

Texas A&M University (TAMU) has deep roots in Texas – established in 1876 as a land-grant university in College Station. Today, the top-tier Texas A&M system enrolls one of the largest student bodies in the United States, distributed statewide over 11 campuses. TAMU San Antonio campus enrollment has grown to around 8,000 graduate and undergraduate students since its inaugural first-year class in 2009 – primarily Bexar County-based, and 70% first-generation college students. We are proud to be part of TAMU-SA’s continued growth as a beacon of higher education in San Antonio.

The Public Health and Education Building will expand education pathways and research opportunities in the health sciences ecosystem for historically underserved communities throughout South Texas.
- Salvador Hector Ochoa, TAMU-SA President

As with every campus building, we approached the architecture mindful of context. Developed along with associate architects Treanor, our design for the Public Health and Education Building engages with the campus master plan and contributes to the evolving campus design language. The exterior, a skillful melding of materials, presents a contemporary expression that embraces local culture. The floor plan layouts efficiently address the administration’s specific set of programmatic research and teaching requirements. Our team also contributed interior design with full FF&E, creating a richer sense of culture and place, and enhancing the experience of faculty and students.

The building program includes research laboratories and administrative areas for Public Health, offices and support spaces for the Department of Curriculum and Instruction, offices and support spaces for the Department of Education and Leadership Preparation, College-Wide Functions such as adjust workspaces and the Educator Café, a Dean’s Suite and a large 100-person classroom, and a STEM instructional laboratory.

We leveraged our extensive experience in optimizing research spaces to design the Public Health Research Laboratories. This suite of spaces combines “open concept” shared laboratories for general benchtop work with enclosed support laboratories to accommodate unique research needs.