Story

The Secchia Center, home to the MSU College of Human Medicine, is a cornerstone of West Michigan’s flourishing life science corridor. It was designed for collaboration and student interaction with innovative instructional technology, and has teaching laboratories, classrooms, offices, lecture rooms, student areas, and state-of-the-art instructional technologies featuring three simulation laboratories: an operating room, geriatric suite and pediatric suite. These simulation labs feature computerized manikin patients on which students can perform actual “surgery,” complete with realistic life signs and bodily functions. These manikins demand some of the most advanced technology available today, which required design and construction of the rooms as though they were actual operating rooms. The 180,000 square foot, steel-framed, seven-story building sits atop a five-story, cast-in-place post-tensioned parking deck. The exterior is wrapped with the same cast stone which also covers the exterior of the parking deck, aluminum and glass. The interior is open and allows for natural light wherever possible. In addition to lecture, dry and wet lab, and classroom spaces, the building includes lounges and study areas for group and solitary study and a roof-top garden and conservatory featuring tables, benches, vines and plants, and expansive views of Michigan Street and downtown Grand Rapids. The Secchia Center is also technologically equipped distance learning to help train students not currently located on the Grand Rapids campus.