By Lindsey Coulter

GWYNEDD VALLEY, Pa. — Gwynedd Mercy University has officially opened the Frances M. Maguire ’55 Healthcare Innovation Center (HIC), a 63,000-square-foot academic facility designed to redefine healthcare education through advanced simulation, interdisciplinary collaboration and sustainable design. Conceived as the centerpiece of the Frances M. Maguire Healthcare Innovation Campus, the building reflects the university’s commitment to preparing the next generation of healthcare professionals in the Mercy tradition.

Designed by Kimmel Bogrette Architects with MEP engineering by McHugh Engineering Associates and civil engineering by Bohler, the $23.5 million project represents the largest academic facility on the Gwynedd Mercy University campus. Irwin & Leighton served as construction manager, delivering the project through a design and construction timeline that spanned from September 2023 to August 2025. The state-of-the-market facility opened to students this fall.

“For more than 70 years, GMercyU has distinguished itself as a leader in preparing healthcare professionals who combine clinical excellence with genuine compassion,” said Deanne H. D’Emilio, JD, president of GMercyU. “With the opening of the Frances M. Maguire Healthcare Innovation Center, we are extending that legacy and positioning our students to meet today’s workforce demands and shape tomorrow’s care.”

The new facility includes nine skills labs and 15 simulation rooms, among them The Windmill Foundation Nurses’ Station, exam rooms for maternity, pediatric, and general patient care, ICU and hospital room replicas, and home-care studio settings. The Frances Cannata Stimmler ’66 and Joseph Stimmler Inspiration Station serves as a flexible space for large-scale simulation events and community collaboration, while the Jie Du, PhD Healthcare Innovation Commons provides a two-story atrium for interdisciplinary learning and engagement.

Advanced technologies include a Virtual Environment for Radiotherapy Teaching (VERT) system, an ASL-5000 lung simulator, and high-fidelity simulation manikins. These tools enable realistic, hands-on training that bridges classroom learning and real-world healthcare environments.

“The HIC is a model for how healthcare education should be delivered,” said Dr. Jane Tang, dean of the Frances M. Maguire College of Nursing and Health Professions. “Our students are learning in environments that mirror real-world practice, where teamwork, technology, and compassion come together to respond to the needs of their communities and improve patient outcomes.”

The center is also designed to foster interprofessional education by bringing together students from nursing, respiratory care, psychology, social work, computer information science, and other disciplines. This integrated approach reflects GMercyU’s strategy to address workforce shortages and prepare graduates to provide whole-patient care in complex healthcare settings.

The Frances M. Maguire Healthcare Innovation Center strengthens the university’s Compassionate Care Collaborative, a partnership with healthcare systems, providers, nonprofits, and entrepreneurs to expand the regional healthcare talent pipeline. The initiative focuses on developing programs that address emerging needs such as telehealth, behavioral health, and integrated care, as well as exploring applications of artificial intelligence to improve patient equity and access.

“The opening of the HIC is a milestone for Gwynedd Mercy University and a tribute to the life and legacy of our beloved alumna, Frannie Maguire,” D’Emilio said. “It represents our vision for the future of healthcare education — one rooted in the Mercy tradition — and focused on preparing students to grow as professionals who address the healthcare needs of today and tomorrow with precision and compassion, always with a focus on improving equity and access for all.”

Made possible by a $10 million gift from the Maguire Foundation, the project underscores GMercyU’s dedication to innovation in healthcare education and its mission to serve the region’s growing workforce needs. The HIC stands as both a technological and educational cornerstone — and a testament to the Mercy values that continue to shape the university’s legacy.

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By Doug Bevier

Read the full story and see more project images in the July/August issue of ���سԹ� and subscribe today to receive free editions in your inbox.

As mainstays of innovation and progress, universities are under growing pressure to address climate change. And with a profound understanding of the scientific imperative to act, many are prioritizing decarbonization across every facet of campus life, from operations and academics to community engagement. At the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), transforming the physical campus by replacing traditional design and construction methods with prefabrication has significantly reduced its carbon footprint. The Tidelands, a student housing project situated in San Francisco’s Dogpatch neighborhood, showcases how this shift to prefabrication, combined with a thoughtful design-build process and rigorous performance targets, has helped lower carbon emissions, create healthier spaces and set new benchmarks for sustainable campus development.

Balancing Aesthetics, Carbon Emissions and Cost

In response to San Francisco’s urgent need for high-density affordable housing, The Tidelands doubled the amount of housing available to UCSF medical students and trainees, offering 595 units across two buildings.

The need to balance aesthetics, environmental impacts and cost became a driver for thoughtful design solutions across the project, inspiring creative problem-solving rather than hindering owner priorities for a timeless building and minimized carbon footprint. The architect, engineers and UCSF came together early in the project, which allowed for the selection of healthy building materials that were also affordable, the integration of passive strategies and cross-team coordination for faster, informed decision-making.

Together, the teams determined that the Tidelands would use Clark Pacific’s Infinite Facade with glass fiber-reinforced concrete (GFRC). The design team tested multiple materials for the building envelope, ultimately discovering that GFRC concrete had significantly lower impacts than other options. The Infinite Facade is a building envelope system, prefabricated offsite that is tested for ASTM and AAMA air, water and vapor penetration, and meets or exceeds Title 24 building code requirements for every climate zone in California.

Clark Pacific collaborated with UCSF to determine a window-to-wall ratio that would keep the cost within budget while also focusing on thermal comfort. The design team explored multiple scenarios and the effect each would have on energy systems, cost and performance.

Kieran Timberlake also conducted a façade sun exposure analysis to determine the impact of solar heat gain on the rooms. The design team selected billows, and horizontal and vertical sunshades were built directly into the prefabricated panels on the sun-facing elevations and flat panels on the others. This strategy, combined with the continuous insulation inherent in the Infinite Facade system, ensures the Tidelands project not only meets but surpasses Title 24 prescriptive requirements on performance. The ability to achieve the desired U-value from a single provider eliminated the need for additional subcontractors and consultants, and simplified energy analysis.

Windows were installed during the manufacturing process. The Tidelands project was completed six months ahead of schedule, and UCSF has one point of contact for the building envelope warranty.

Doug Bevier is director of preconstruction at Clark Pacific.

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As educational institutions strive to create healthier, more energy-efficient and student-centered learning environments, natural daylighting has emerged as a key design strategy that supports sustainable and inclusive learning design. A well-planned daylighting strategy offers numerous sustainability benefits and can enhance key design principles that are shaping the future of educational spaces

The Benefits of Sustainable School Design

1. Healthier Indoor Environments

Sustainable school design creates healthier learning environments by improving indoor air quality, natural ventilation and daylighting. High-efficiency ventilation systems filter out airborne pollutants, while sustainable materials and finishes reduce exposure to harmful chemicals.

Natural daylight, a critical element of healthy indoor spaces, offers a dynamic lighting alternative to static electric lighting solutions, which can adversely affect the building occupants’ mood, sleep patterns and overall well-being. The daily progression from darkness to physiologically meaningful dynamic daylight and back supports the body’s time-dependent production of serotonin and melatonin, enhancing mood regulation, attention span and overall student engagement.

Recent discoveries about have further underscored the importance of daylight as a source for interior space illumination. These cells play a vital role in regulating circadian rhythms, paving the way for evidence-based daylighting design strategies. By integrating these insights with modern architectural and engineering principles, sustainable schools are better equipped to optimize learning environments.

2. Higher Attendance and Teacher-Retention Rates

Sustainable school design not only creates healthier learning environments—it also boosts attendance and teacher retention. A survey of 665 industry executives revealed that more than 70% of respondents saw reduced absenteeism and improved performance in green schools. Complementing this, a nationwide survey found that nearly all teachers (97%) consider effective learning environment design essential for student success, with 80% linking it to effective teaching and 68% factoring it into job decisions.

Key features—such as improved indoor air quality, reduced chemical emissions, abundant natural daylight and better humidity control—yield environmental, fiscal and health benefits. These advantages lead to lower absenteeism, reduced turnover and enhanced performance, with a 2011 study showing up to 7.5% improvement in attendance and an 8% to 19% boost in student performance when compared to conventional schools.

3. Improved Student Performance and Test Scores

The relationship between sustainable school design and academic performance is also well documented. from the Lighting Research Center (LRC) and other academic institutions shows that exposure to natural daylight in classrooms enhances cognitive function, improves memory retention and reduces stress and fatigue. In fact, a by the Heschong Mahone Group revealed that students in naturally daylit classrooms advanced 20% faster in math and 26% faster in reading compared to those in environments with limited daylight. Additional studies indicate that classrooms with optimized natural daylighting contribute to increased productivity, better concentration and higher overall academic achievement.

4. Reduced Environmental Impact

K-12 schools spend roughly $8 billion annually on energy and emit approximately 72 million metric tons of CO₂—equivalent to 18 coal-fired power plants per year—according to the U.S. Department of Energy. By adopting sustainable design strategies, especially natural daylighting, schools can lower energy consumption, reduce emissions and create healthier learning environments.

A well-designed daylighting system reduces reliance on electric lighting, which can account for 35% to 50% of a school’s annual energy use. Daylight has a higher efficacy factor compared to electric lighting, providing more light with less heat. As a result, maximizing daylight can lower cooling demands by up to , easing the load on HVAC systems, and can reduce electric lighting consumption by up to . These energy efficiencies translate into significant cost savings and a reduced environmental footprint.

5. Lower Operating Costs

Lastly, schools designed with sustainability in mind benefit from significantly lower long-term operational costs. High-performance buildings utilize strategies such as natural ventilation, enhanced insulation and geothermal heating to reduce energy consumption and improve efficiency. According to the , green schools, on average, use 33% less energy and 32% less water than their conventional counterparts, saving roughly $100,000 per year in direct operating costs.

Read the full story in the of ���سԹ� and learn more about natural daylighting and sustainable design principles that can support biophilic design, neuro-inclusive learning spaces, resiliency and more.

Neall Digert, Ph.D., MIES, is vice president of Innovation and Market Development, for Kingspan Light + Air North America.

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