Educational
- Client: Indiana Univ. - Purdue Univ. Fort Wayne
- Architect: MSKTD & Associates
- Facility Type: Educational
- Location: Fort Wayne, IN
- Date Completed: 11/2008
- Cost: $5.3 Million
For more information contact Micheal Bluhm After many years of offering courses at separate locations in Fort Wayne, Indiana University and Purdue University opened the combined campus of IPFW in 1964. Several new major facilities opened during the 1990s enhancing the academic structure of the university. Enrollments for fall 2004 were the highest in the history of the campus, which resulted in more new construction. Today, the university is still growing and has added more new buildings, including the Medical Education Building.
The medical field continues to grow, as does the university�s enrollment, therefore, a facility that could accommodate first and second year medical and allied health students, as well as serve as the future home for the third and fourth years of medical school education would be a welcome addition to the IPFW campus. A new Medical Education Building was proposed to provide much needed space for the University�s medical education program, with expanded research laboratories and classrooms.
Construction on this 12 million project began in the summer of 2008 and the building was open to the public in the spring of 2009. This new 42,000 s.f. building for the I.U. School of Medicine at IPFW houses research and office facilities for up to 10 faculty researchers. Space is provided for shared research equipment such as instrumentation labs, tissue culture facilities, cold room and an incubator room for microbiology research. It also contains an accredited animal facility that increases the amount of current space available.
The Center contains state of the art classrooms and student computer facilities with a full range of digital presentation technology. Teaching laboratories and a gross anatomy lab are included in the building as well as four patient exam rooms for instruction in patient history taking and physical diagnosis, and a problem based learning lab. Students have 24-hour access to the teaching parts of the building, and limited access to the administrative and the research areas of the building after hours. Access to the animal care complex and gross anatomy laboratory is highly restricted at all times, controlled via electronic and security card access systems.
The administrative and clerical staff area includes a conference room with digital video conferencing capabilities to maintain contact with the other regional centers and the school administration in Indianapolis. Appropriate study and lounge facilities are also provided. The center educates dozens of doctors and is a valuable source of medical research in northeast Indiana. Its support of community health organizations and functions makes it an important tool for economic development as well.
Another rather unique aspect of the Medical Education Building is that it contains IPFW�s carillon, a computerized 49-bell system that reproduces the Westminster Chimes and hundreds of other songs. It also keeps perfect time � it�s connected to the U.S. Naval Observatory atomic clock in Colorado.