folded glass fronts AWSOM medical school building in arkansas

Architecture as a Tool for Health and Education

Alice L. Walton School of Medicine (AWSOM) officially opens its new academic building on the campus of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in Bentonville, Arkansas. Designed by Arkansas-based firm Polk Stanley Wilcox and constructed by Crossland Construction, the four-story, 154,000-square-foot facility marks the beginning of the school’s inaugural MD program.

Arkansas-based studio Polk Stanley Wilcox approached the project with an architectural language that draws from the geology of the Ozarks. The building’s most prominent feature, a sharply angled front entry, evokes local limestone bluff shelters, combining a sloped glass facade with a satin-finished brass soffit and a massive precast concrete wall. Beneath this canopy, two-story-deep steel trusses extend over eighty feet, creating a cantilevered volume that asserts both permanence and openness.

AWSOM’s exterior is clad primarily in glass, allowing the surrounding forest to visually merge with the reflective facade. Nearly 8,000 square feet of perforated brass panels act as sunshades, reducing solar gain while preserving interior daylight. Inside, the building offers a suite of contemporary learning environments: a simulation center, anatomy lab, clinical skills center, makerspace, library, and wellness spaces including a gym, lounge, and quiet room.

images © Timothy Hursley, courtesy Alice L. Walton School of Medicine

arkansas’ landscaped campus of meandering trails

The landscape surrounding the newly opened building for AWSOM is designed by New York-based OSD: Office of Strategy + Design. Through its integration with the Crystal Bridges trail system, the site connects the building to the broader campus in Arkansas while prioritizing community engagement, accessibility, and ecological awareness. Trails meander past ponds, healing gardens, outdoor classrooms, and a woodland amphitheater. A 215-foot water feature follows the site’s natural slope, adding ambient sound and movement.

A rooftop park, covering two acres and rising seventy feet above grade, brings the forest into dialogue with the uppermost floor. It is the largest rooftop of its kind in the region, structured as a layered ascent through native stonework and plantings that culminate in an overlook with views of the Ozark foothills. More than 550 new trees and 140,000 native plants were introduced throughout the site.

AWSOM opens a new medical education facility in Bentonville, Arkansas

art and public life at awsom

AWSOM was established in 2021 by Alice Walton as a nonprofit Arkansas institution dedicated to training physicians through a curriculum that blends science, the arts, and whole-person health. Walton has emphasized that the building’s design should support the mental, emotional, and physical well-being of future doctors. That mission extends into the cultural programming of the building: the lobby, art gallery, and café will open to the public on November 3rd, 2025.

To mark the occasion, Art Bridges Foundation, also founded by Walton, will inaugurate a new exhibition titled Good Medicine: The Power of Indigenous Art. Presented on the ground floor, the show explores how creativity serves Indigenous communities in maintaining cultural knowledge and wellness. A permanent installation by Ugo Rondinone, The Melancholic (2015), stands near the school’s entrance, reinforcing the campus-wide relationship between art and health.

the architecture is inspired by regional geology and Ozark bluff shelters

AWSOM joins a growing constellation of architecture dedicated to health and education in Bentonville. Just uphill from the medical school is the newly completed Heartland Whole Health Institute, also founded by Walton and designed by Marlon Blackwell Architects. Its stone facade references the vernacular ‘Ozark Giraffe’ masonry style and continues the campus’s emphasis on regionally rooted materials.

The Crystal Bridges Museum itself is undergoing a 114,000-square-foot expansion, slated to open in 2026 (see designboom’s coverage here). Designed by Safdie Architects, the project will introduce new galleries, gathering spaces, and education facilities to the museum’s existing footprint. The three projects together form an interconnected campus planned for cultural and community investment in northwest Arkansas.

glass facades reflect the surrounding forest and incorporate brass sunshades