Banking on the Future

It expands the footprint of the Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing, founded in 1905 as a small training program in Atlanta. The learning center occupies four floors at 250 East Ponce, an eight-level office building constructed in 1962 in Decatur. Four different banks operated branches there until the School of Nursing began renovations for the learning center in 2020. 

Transforming space in a 60-year-old building to create what is now one of the largest nursing simulation centers in Georgia was an exercise in collaboration and creative thinking for everyone at the School of Nursing. 

“Many of our faculty and staff participated in focus groups to plan what types of learning spaces were needed, what they would look like, and how they would be equipped, down to the last detail,” says Tricia Benson, 86MN, the school’s chief engagement officer. “Everyone loved the location and history of the building. The challenge was figuring out how to configure 70,000 square feet of space to better educate pre-licensure and post-licensure students.” 

The task required a special skill set. The Beck Group, which has designed and built simulation centers for schools in other states, was awarded the job. 

When architect Ken Higa, Benson, and others first saw the space, each floor had a different look and feel. The first and second floors still housed a bank, where tellers waited on customers in an open two-story lobby. The fourth floor was a long, plain series of offices. The terrace level, or basement, was a dizzying maze of drab corridors. In the middle was a huge bank vault installed by Decatur Federal Savings & Loan, the original owner of the building. 

The vault, Higa knew, would have to stay. Its massive metal door and two-foot-thick walls were immovable. Higa and the School of Nursing agreed on a solution: convert the vault into the ENLC’s largest skills lab. 

“Everyone embraced the vault as a touchstone for honoring what the bank used to be while
transforming it into something unique to support nursing education,” says Higa.

Another feature he envisioned was a social stairway and digital wall to connect the first and second floors. The first floor is now the student commons, a bright and open lobby with a reception area, comfortable seats and tables, meeting and study spaces, conference rooms, and a kitchen.

From there, students and faculty head up to the second floor for classes, brainstorming sessions in the Innovation Hub, independent practice time in the open skills lab, and simulations in a home lab and telehealth office.

Throughout the learning center, Emory-themed colors and photographs link it to the main university campus. Audiovisual and IT experts have installed the latest technology to run multiple complex simulations and support continuing education provided by the Emory Nursing Experience on the fourth floor.

The Beck Group designed the learning center using 3-D computer technology that allows users to “walk” through the space. The technology was a bonus when online meetings became the norm during the COVID-19 pandemic. “It allowed everyone at the School of Nursing to see the space as we saw it,” Higa says.

COVID had another effect on Higa and his colleagues. “It deepened our appreciation for how vital nurses are in caring for patients,” he says. “It was more important than ever to make sure the Emory Nursing Learning Center was done successfully.”

For Benson and her colleagues, making students feel they are part of the School of Nursing, whatever their location, was essential. “Whether students are doing a simulation at the learning center in Decatur or attending a lecture at the 1520 Clifton Road building, the quality of their education is our priority.”