Glazed walls, a large metal roof and a vast central atrium feature in an academic building designed by architecture firm Foster + Partners for an emerging medical campus in Ohio.
The Sheila and Eric Samson Pavilion is located just beyond downtown Cleveland. Encompassing 478,000 square feet (44,408 square metres), the educational facility brings medical, dental and nursing programmes under one roof.

Marking "a significant investment in the future of health education", the building is operated by two leading institutions ? Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University.
Foster + Partners ? a British firm with offices worldwide ? was tasked with producing a flexible building that could adapt to new technologies and evolving areas of research. The facility also needed to engender collaboration among the different disciplines.
"The growing interdisciplinary nature of education and research requires more informal meeting and debating spaces," said the firm's founder Norman Foster.
"We have designed a building that encourages collaboration and builds a platform for practical learning and knowledge sharing."
Rectangular in plan, the four-storey building is surrounded by large lawns and relatively low-scale buildings. Facades consist of glass walls and white aluminium spandrels, while the overhanging roof is made of stainless steel.

Entrances are found on the east and west, while indoor gardens line the north and south elevations. Each discipl...