Students present new H-E-B market designs to company execs

Prototypes for future H-E-B markets created by Texas A&M architecture students were unveiled Jan. 25, 2016 at H-E-B's downtown San Antonio headquarters at a gathering that included company design executives and local architects.

Students created the models and drawings in a fall 2015 Architecture-For-Health studio led by George J. Mann, holder of the Ronald L. Skaggs Professorship in Health Facilities Design and Zhipeng Lu, architecture lecturer.

In the studio, 11 [graduate architecture ] (http://dept.arch.tamu.edu/graduate/master-architecture/) students and 15 [environmental design] (http://dept.arch.tamu.edu/undergraduate/) students worked in six groups with guidance from members of H-E-B’s design and construction team and Texas A&M health science faculty to create prototype markets equipped with gardening demonstration areas, farmers markets, and space designated for health screenings and cooking and nutrition education.

The designs reflect retail stores’ anticipated role in improving community health, said Bita Kash, director of the [Center for Health Organization Transformation] (http://sph.tamhsc.edu/research/centers/chot.html) at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health who is assisting with the studio. “In addition to collaborating with primary care providers and health systems, H-E-B could even participate in chronic disease management,” she said.

Students also unveiled designs for multipurpose vehicles that H-E-B could utilize to promote healthy diets and sell produce in areas underserved by grocery stores.

These “mobile educational units” would be small enough to fit on neighborhood streets but large enough to sell produce and facilitate nutrition education programs or post disaster relief efforts.

While some designs include space within the vehicles for classrooms and produce displays, others used the vehicle interiors to accommodate shading systems and activities staged outside of the vehicle.

In creating the market and vehicle designs, students collaborated with Caren Easterling '89, H-E-B director of design and construction, and a group of HEB architects, health promotion managers and building engineers.

"The students' innovative designs advance the nutritional, psychological and behavioral aspects of H-E-B's [health and wellness] (https://www.heb.com/static-page/H-E-B-Health-and-Wellness) initiatives," said Boon Chew, head of the Texas A&M [Department of Nutrition and Food Science] (http://nfs.tamu.edu) , who, along with Eric Bardenhagen, assistant professor of [landscape architecture] (http://laup.arch.tamu.edu/) , was an additional studio collaborator.

Representatives from three local design firms, Marmon Mok, Lake Flato and Ford Powell Carson, attended the unveiling.

H-E-B operates 370 markets, 52 of them in Mexico.