The Rachel Upjohn Building
The Rachel Upjohn Building was designed by architects at Albert Kahn Associates and built in exactly two years by a construction team led by Devon Industrial Group. Private donations, funds from the financial reserves of the U-M Health System, and a $4 million grant from the National Institute of Health’s National Center for Research Resources paid for the building’s construction.
The three-story building has a glass-enclosed entrance lobby, an atrium topped by a massive skylight, and a rear façade made entirely of sheet glass – all designed to bring light into the building throughout the day. The lower level features a 120-seat auditorium and suite of meeting rooms, and opens onto a patio that faces a small forest.
Separate clinical areas for children and adolescents, adults, and substance-abuse patients make up most of the first floor, with 335 offices and outpatient treatment rooms where psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, nurses, and some primary care clinicians can meet with and treat patients and families. The first-floor also atrium houses a patient and visitor education and resource center funded by the Friends of the University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers volunteer group. U-M providers will also be able to provide their expertise to patients around the state of Michigan and beyond, using two telemedicine rooms.
The second floor — Depression Center research space — Is devoted entirely to research of depression, bipolar and related illnesses, with laboratories, offices and open areas called “collaboratories” where researches can gather informally to exchange ideas. Soon, a Sleep & Chronophysiology Laboratory will open, with 6 beds for overnight sleep studies. An MRI simulator will be installed, to help patients and research volunteers become accustomed to the experience of being in an MRI before they actually have their scans at University Hospital. Other research features include observation rooms, freezer storage for genetic samples, and computer rooms for scientific data and brain-imaging analysis.
The building is named for Rachel Mary (Upjohn) Meader of Kalamazoo, who with her husband Edwin gave $10 million toward its construction. It’s also named for Mrs. Meader’s grandmother, Rachel Upjohn, who was the first wife of William E. Upjohn, M.D. Dr. Upjohn was a U-M Medical School alumnus in the late 19th century and the inventor of the first pill that dissolved easily in the human body. He co-founded the Upjohn Pharmaceutical company with his brothers.
In addition to the Meaders, notable donors include Phil Jenkins, an Ann Arbor businessman who gave $2 million toward construction and another $2 million toward a Depression Center professorship and research; and Waltraud (Wally) Prechter, who gave $3.5 million to fund the new Heinz C. Prechter Bipolar Genetic Repository, a national research effort to determine the genetics of bipolar disorder.
All three major donors to the building’s missions were motivated by their personal experience: Mrs. Meader’s own lifelong struggle with depression and successful treatment; Mr. Jenkins’ late wife Lyn’s battle against the same disease; and Mrs. Prechter’s tragic loss of her husband Heinz to suicide in 2001, driven by his bipolar disorder.