The three-story Idaho College of Osteopathic Medicine is an L-shaped facility surrounding a courtyard used year-round by students, faculty and staff. The team’s challenge on this 90,000-sq-ft project was to build it on schedule while many of the college’s key programming decisions were still in flux. The academic program, accreditation, student recruitment and facilities were all being developed concurrently from scratch. Each element had its own timeline, and the ICOM building had to be designed and built in the relatively short timeframe of 14 months. 

The team sequenced construction around the evolving program. The newly hired staff continued to develop academic programs well into construction, driving design changes that were coordinated and implemented on the jobsite. As a privately funded project, the design had to blend amenities of an academic building with the aesthetics of a hotel and the economy of a commercial office. Among the key features are a 50-ft glass curtain wall system, an oversized open lobby and a suspended stair that connects all three levels. The building’s primary educational spaces such as the library, lecture halls, research lab and study spaces are located on the first level, with the osteopathic manual manipulation lab and simulation center on the second floor and faculty and staff offices with a shared lounge on the third floor. The team coordinated multiple milestones for each element that enabled crews to complete the ICOM on time at a cost of $24 million. 

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