The Medical Education Center (MEC) at New York Medical College was the focus of a master plan developed by Payette Associates that resolved and synthesized a number of the college’s competing needs. The four-story brick and stucco building consolidates the teaching program for 400 first-and second-year medical students, while also providing a new entry and campus identity


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The first floor of the MEC provides an entrance lobby, a 250-seat auditorium, and new stack and study space for the existing library in the adjacent Basic Sciences Building (BSB). The second and third floors each contain nine flexible teaching classrooms and a preparation laboratory. These “teaching modules” allow for multiple furniture layouts to support the various teaching methods of the basic sciences curriculum. Each module can be subdivided with folding partitions for small group study. Previously landlocked in the BSB, these new classrooms enjoy generous views to the outside.

The centerpiece of the MEC is a 4,800-square-foot gross-anatomy laboratory. Historically, such spaces have been relegated to out-of-the-way locations, usually basements, and deprived of natural light. In the MEC, this space is celebrated, being located on the top floor of the building and given abundant natural light through a continuous glass clerestory. The space is evocative of an artist’s studio and breathes vitality into this important activity that is the foundation of medical education. At night, this space becomes a beacon on campus, signifying the importance of academic excellence to the New York Medical College’s mission


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PROJECT CATEGORY New Construction (completed october 2001)

CHIEF ADMINISTRATOR Reverend Monsignor Harry C. Barrett, DMin, MPH, President and CEo, (914) 594-4536

FIRM Payette Associates, (617) 895-1246

DESIGN TEAM Thomas M. Payette, Principal-in-Charge; Stephen Schram, Project Manager; Mark Careaga, Project Designer (Payette Associates); Allan Ames, Mechanical Engineer (Bard, Rao + Athanas)

PHOTOGRAPHY © Woodruff/Brown Photography

BED CAPACITY N/A

TOTAL BUILDING AREA (SQ. FT.) 55,600 (gross)

TOTAL LAND AREA 11.6

TOTAL COST (EXCLUDING LAND) $14,000,000