Architectural Visualization of Renovated Space for the Department of Pathology
The University of Michigan Health System, Department of Pathology has recently started making preparations to move to the North Campus Research Complex. Previously, the Department of Pathology had labs dispersed around the campus. Now there is a proposed $160 million effort to centralize the labs of the Department of Pathology and other health system branches in a space that will be more flexible and adept at accommodating future research and developments in technology.
Tsoi/Kobus and Associates, an architecture firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts are the architects chosen to design the new labs. They are a firm based out of Cambridge, Massachusetts specializing in architecture and interior design of technology and science, university, and healthcare projects.
The Duderstadt Center played host to the design review lead by Christine Baker of the UMH Facilities Projects and Corrie Pennington-Block of CW Mott Administration. The Department of Pathology staff were invited and asked to give feedback on the designs. These meetings continued for a week from April 20-24, 2015 with various participating sub-groups. Sessions comprised of an introduction and orientation to the design using standard hard-copy architectural floor plans. Computer-generated walk-through videos and Google Earth maps were put up on the large Tiled Display to assist in visualizing.
The designers wanted the staff’s opinion on questions of space utilization and adjacencies. To assist in visualizing this, the designs were uploaded to the MIDEN through FBX files, a file form exported from Autodesk Revit. Through the use of the MIDEN, Pathology staff could walk through a full-scale virtual replication of the architects floor plan allowing participants to explore the proposed layout and give more in-depth feedback. Based in part on that feedback, the architects revised the design and ran
another review session on May 14.
Click here to read The Ann Arbor News article about the proposed lab space.