Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) with Shepley Bulfinch, the UT Dell Medical Center will be a destination for world-class healthcare and will anchor a new campus for care, discovery and innovation as part of The University of Texas at Austin’s vision for advancing human flourishing.
Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) with Shepley Bulfinch is leading the design of the new UT Dell Medical Center and the first phase of the UT Dell Campus for Advanced Research at The University of Texas at Austin. Working closely with UT Austin and a multidisciplinary team of consultants, the SOM-led team will design a medical center that will bring together clinical care, discovery and innovation in a unified setting—where welcoming, intuitive spaces and technology, data, and AI are integrated from the earliest stages to support clinicians, connect the patient journey, and continuously improve outcomes.
“We’re presented with a rare opportunity to design a medical center from the ground up at a moment when AI, data, and digital systems are reshaping the world around us,” said SOM Design Partner Ryan Culligan. “These powerful technologies can now be embedded into healthcare settings in unprecedented ways—quietly supporting clinicians and connecting the patient journey, while freeing the architecture to focus on healing through access to nature, natural light, and spaces for human connection.”
For SOM, the UT Dell Medical Center continues a legacy of advancing first-of-their-kind projects through design, engineering, and planning. In healthcare, the firm has applied that same spirit of innovation to rethinking how architecture can support new models of care—designing environments that respond to complex clinical requirements while improving the journeys of patients, families, and providers. Drawing on work for institutions including Memorial Sloan Kettering, Mount Sinai Health System, Cleveland Clinic, and the Winship Cancer Institute at Emory Midtown, SOM will help define how an AI-native academic medical center works, feels, and supports the people it serves.
“Unburdened by legacy infrastructure or outdated operational models, UT Dell Medical Center gives us the rare opportunity to design what is right, rather than settling for what is merely possible,” said SOM Principal and Healthcare Practice Leader Anthony Treu. “We are dismantling the traditional, fragmented hospital model to build a highly integrated engine for healing and innovation. This project means that patients, clinicians, and researchers will actively drive the future of medicine together.”
Shepley Bulfinch brings deep expertise in the planning and design of academic medical centers, cancer facilities, acute care hospitals, and research environments. With a healthcare practice shaped by more than a century of work with leading institutions—including Harvard Medical School, Mayo Clinic, Yale New Haven Health and Smilow Cancer Hospital, Michigan Medicine, Duke Health, and Penn Medicine—the firm’s nuanced understanding of complex medical campuses supports care delivery, scientific collaboration, and medical education breakthroughs.
“Shepley Bulfinch is thrilled to partner with The University of Texas at Austin and SOM to bring this pioneering project to reality,” said Shepley Bulfinch Principal Uma Ramanathan, FAIA. “Our long history with leaders in transformational care and each organization’s commitment to bringing the best they have to this milestone project will establish Austin as a center of excellence in the future of care, research and education.”
The University plans to break ground on the UT Dell Medical Center later this year.
Project Team
The SOM-led project team, with Shepley Bulfinch, includes 4b Technology Group, Atelier Ten, Atlas Consulting, BAL-TEX, BR+A, Buro Happold, Code Red Consultants, Coleman & Associates, Consertus, ETS Lindgren, FEC Heliports, Fisher Marantz Stone, Gonzalez Shah Smith, HERA Laboratory Planners, KFI, Kimley-Horn, MWM DesignGroup, NV5, O’Connell Robertson, OJB Studios, RWDI, SSR, St. Onge, Structures, Sunland Group, Walker Consultants, and Worrell Design Group.
