The Hans Rosling Center for Population Health | Seattle, Washington |2020

Architects: The Miller Hull Partnership, LLP.
Client: University of Washington
Design-Builder: Lease Crutcher Lewis
Landscape Architects: Site Workshop

The Hans Rosling Center for Population Health is a hybrid facility designed to respond directly to the mission of the University of Washington’s Population Health Initiative—a 25-year vision to address the most persistent and emerging challenges affecting human health, environmental resilience and social and economic equity across the globe.

The 290,000-square-foot building supports this goal by bringing related yet disparate specialties together in the pursuit of global health and a world where all people can live healthier and more fulfilling lives.

Three porous ground floors nestled into the sloping site invite people into public spaces from all directions.

This move is intended to serve as an interdisciplinary call to action: all disciplines have something to offer in solving the interrelated issues related to population health.

Collaborative areas, gathering spaces, classrooms and a café are layered into these ground floors to both highlight and foster engagement beyond the four walls.

Researchers, data analysts, health practitioners and university faculty in the areas of public and global health are located in this facility.

A set of workspace types are organized into neighborhoods to encourage engagement within existing teams: shared enclosed offices, open workstations and drop-in workspace allow for a range of environments, use durations, and grant fluctuations.

A signature investment in campus architecture, the building anchors a prominent gateway entry to campus, with indoor and outdoor accessible connections into campus.

A generous porch expression gives rain cover to a connecting stair inviting people to experience the building and its public environments.

These connections also dissolve a former barrier between historic campus and an upcoming innovation district.

Up close, the building’s stone, precast and delicate fins provide texture, materiality and human scale sympathetic to neighboring structures.

From afar, the fins of the west façade transform to express a more macro gesture, implying movement and conveying a spirit of innovation.