Connection and collaboration

Consisting of enclosed offices, modular workstations, conferencing space, break areas, and informal collaboration spaces, this eight-story, 322,300-square-foot professional office building on the Milwaukee Regional Medical Center campus allows more than 1,400 physicians, nurse practitioners, researchers and healthcare staff to be relocated into one dedicated central workplace. The Medical College of Wisconsin Hub for Collaborative Medicine enhances patient access and care delivery, and frees up clinical space within the hospital, but also helps MCW accomplish four key objectives: bringing clinicians together for clinical, research, educational, and community engagement endeavors; creating a modern workplace that fosters innovation, collaboration, and collegiality; attracting and retaining the best students, faculty, and staff; and supporting clinical growth while preserving space for future expansion on the MRMC campus.

The building is physically connected to the existing Medical Education and Health Research Center buildings to the north at multiple levels, and connected to the Wisconsin Diagnostic Laboratory Building to the south by an enclosed elevated skywalk over Connell Avenue. A physical and symbolic bridge joining the clinical, academic, and research missions of MCW, the building creates efficiencies through proximity and adjacencies; provides adaptable workspaces and shared resources among departments and programs; and incorporates technology connecting staff and faculty.

Its floor plan is marked by consistency to allow for flexibility as different groups grow and shrink over time or as administrators see opportunities to shift certain groups to work more closely together. At the same time, it is designed to encourage collaboration, featuring openings and interaction areas between floors (around which are located common support functions), open interaction stairs, and shared conference rooms and break areas, organized to create desired crossing of interdisciplinary paths.

Additional renovations and relocations within adjacent buildings are helping support program growth, including a new School of Pharmacy, helping reposition MCW's identity as a health sciences university.