SM&W Contribution
The Nursing Education Center is the State of Rhode Island’s first non-physician-based, nursing simulation and education facility located in Providence, RI. The Nursing Education Center is comprised of two universities: The University of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College and is located on the first 3 floors of the old South Street Power Station, now known as South Street Landing. SM&W provided multidisciplinary consulting services on the 133,000 SF project; including acoustics, audiovisual, IT, medical equipment planning, and security services. The facility includes high fidelity simulation labs, two simulated operating rooms, a labor & delivery lab, and ICU lab, a pediatrics lab, standardized patient exam suites, a bariatric patient lab, and multiple skills and training spaces.
In addition to providing state-of-the-art nursing education, the schools wished to be the source for simulation training for other medical fields. Our team worked to create spaces that would serve the needs of anesthesiologist, surgical technologies, home healthcare providers, and others in a flexible and fully-equipped environment.
The challenge of managing a healthcare project with an atypical program and multiple stakeholders was significant. There was no dedicated faculty for the Nursing Education Center during the design period, and all planning decisions stemmed from the two different universities. Our team had to coordinate and account for two different sets of standards for the simulation programs, and two sets of simulation technology philosophies.
Awards & Related Press:
- National Trust for Historic Preservation | 2019 Richard H. Driehaus Foundation National Preservation Award
- Providence Business News | South Street Landing restoration recognized with national award
- Boston Society of Architects | 2019 Education Facilities Design Award
- Society for College and University Planning (SCUP) | 2020 Excellence Awards: Honor Award for Excellence in Architecture for Rehabilitation, Restoration or Preservation
Photos © Robert Benson Photography
