This summer, the Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) opened in Bentonville, Arkansas, attracting attention both for its striking architecture and revolutionary ideas about medicine.
The four-storey building with its angular facade is clad in earth-tone precast concrete and brass panels, reflecting the geology of the surrounding landscape and the Ozark Mountains.
Unusually for such a grand project – it has a rooftop garden, reflection pond, wellness studio and gym – a local architectural studio was employed for its design, instead of parachuting in a “starchitect”, who was as likely as not to have produced a building quite alien to the area. Arkansas-based Polk Stanley Wilcox Architects has an office in Fayetteville and has been practising in the area for almost five decades.
Too often, project owners desire a stunning architectural statement but fail to offer opportunities to local architectural firms with a deep-rooted understanding of the place and the people. This project is an exemplary story of what a local practice can achieve.
But what makes AWSOM truly awesome – no pun intended – is not the hardware, but its revolutionary ideas and approach to medical education and treatment.
For too long, Western medicine has focused on patients’ histories and physical symptoms, accordingly providing professional diagnoses and treatment options. The idea is based on the belief that our bodies are healthy to begin with, and we go to the hospital or clinic only when we experience pain or health problems surface.