Inside a Houston Healthcare Building Dedicated to Connectivity

Everything’s bigger in the Lone Star State. The Texas Medical Center in Houston is the largest such complex in the world as well as among its most highly regarded. Spanning more than 2 square miles, encompassing 61 different hospitals and institutions, it constitutes the eighth largest business district in the U.S., one that recently became even larger with the addition of TMC Helix Park, a 37-acre trailblazing life-sciences campus that will eventually include multiple laboratory and research buildings along with a convention center, hotel, an apartment tower, and retail space—more than 5 million square feet of real estate in all. 

The first structure, the four-story, 250,000-square-foot TMC3 Collaborative Building, opened in October 2023. Elkus Manfredi Architects, the big Boston-based firm assigned the inaugural project as well as the master planning of Helix Park, has stats almost as impressive as the client’s: It not only ranks number 48 among the Interior Design top 100 Giants but also 34th, 43rd, and 49th on the Hospitality, Sustainability, and Healthcare Giants lists, respectively. David P. Manfredi, CEO and founding principal along with the late Howard F. Elkus, describes TMC3 as “both the convening space for the Helix campus as well as a microcosm of the whole.” Dedicated to connectivity and cooperation between and among researchers and private-sector partners, the facility is inspired by translational science: “Traditionally, there’s been a great divide between academic and commercial science, the biopharmaceuticals,” Manfredi notes. “The translational science construct brings the two worlds together to move solutions from lab to market as fast as possible.”

Discover The LEED Gold-Certified TMC3 Building

“The model at TMC3 is to combine fully equipped laboratory space, promising startups, and organizations that offer seed capital and support in translational medicine,” says Elkus Manfredi principal Elizabeth Lowrey, who led the interior architecture team. “We’re shifting from a research mindset of ‘mine’ to one of ‘ours.’” Thus, the building’s 43,000 square feet of state-of-the-art laboratories are shared by three of TMC’s founding institutions: the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Texas A&M University Health Science Center, and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. 

The building itself, Manfredi continues, “is almost square in plan, out of which is hollowed an atrium that serves as the town square for the whole campus, the agora for ideas.” Throwing off the rectangular footprint slightly, the east facade describes a long, shallow curve that follows the arc of the adjacent garden—one of five green spaces by landscape architect Mikyoung Kim that connect in a DNA-inspired double helix, a near 7-acre expanse that gives the campus its name. 

As for the atrium, it’s also strikingly expansive: 12,000 square feet of limestone-clad floor space topped by an almost equally large ceramic fritted glass skylight nearly 75 feet above. Fronted by deep balcony corridors, three encircling tiers of glass-walled laboratories and administrative offices overlook the huge volume, which is crisscrossed by a bridge and staircases linking the floors. Transparency and connectivity are more than metaphors here. 

Thanks to bleacher seating and a podium backed by a giant video screen, the atrium accommodates educational and cultural events, while oak slats covering the walls and balcony undersides bring warmth and texture to the imposing venue, as do the poured-in-place concrete walls surrounding the reception area. Dedicating so much cubic footage to an atrium might seem counterintuitive but, flooded with daylight, its vast dimensions and natural surfaces animate the whole building. “You walk in, and the generosity of light and space become palpable,” Lowrey observes. “The materials bring a human touch to the scale, making the huge volume feel approachable and reassuring.” 

The second and third stories contain the joint laboratories and adjacent administrative areas. The fourth floor houses the TMC executive suite—a low key–luxe environment of glossy whites and silver grays offset by marble flooring and wood or suede paneling—partner-institution offices, and the James P. Allison Institute, a 14,000-square-foot cancer research lab named for the resident Nobel laureate. Furniture throughout is clean and modern, with a representative sampling of blue-chip pieces by Jasper Morrison, MUT Design, Luca Nichetto, and other contemporary luminaries. 

As befits a medical center, the LEED Gold–certified TMC3 building places a premium on the health and well-being of its occupants, most conspicuously by maximizing the physical relationship between the interiors and the natural world. “When we began discussing our involvement with Helix Park back in 2019,” Manfredi recalls, “one of the first things I said was that the outdoor spaces are as important as the indoor ones.” The curving east facade hosts an amphitheater-like array of staggered terraces—sun-drenched, lushly planted, and furnished with pristine-white tables and chairs by Lievore Altherr Molina and Richard Schultz, they are an irresistibly welcoming al fresco amenity. And, of course, the ground floor offers immediate access to the green park where in good weather research teams can hold meetings under a canopy of shade trees. “People are not just working out there—they can have lunch together or a beer on Friday after work or movie nights and kite festivals,” Manfredi concludes. “Making all those connections with colleagues and their families in a low-pressure, natural environment will accelerate the science.” 

Take A Look At The TMC3 Collaborative Building In Houston