Hospitals just aren't what they used to be-and that's a healthy thing.

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The 80-bed, $78 million American Family Children's Hospital, the newest addition to the University of Wisconsin at Madison family of medical facilities, is designed to be a space that presents a friendly, nonthreatening face to children.

The facility's groundbreaking took place in October 2004, and completion is scheduled for early 2007. The facility will hold six floors of medical space atop a three-story, 200-space parking garage.

"This is really a 10-story building," said Jim Yehle, project manager for general contractor J.H. Findorff & Son of Madison. "The first three are a post-tensioned parking ramp. The next seven are hospital and one mechanical floor nested in between."

The hospital will contain medical/surgical rooms, a hematology/oncology unit, pediatric intensive care unit and surgical suites - not all of which will be built out immediately - and was designed with principles of evidence-based design.

It will replace the existing pediatric care facility in the main University of Wisconsin hospital building.

Healing Children

Clark Miller, senior vice president and principal of HDR Architecture Inc. in Chicago, the project's designer, said, "Current medical research says if you provide children a healing environment and a support system, outcomes will improve. This is something that has evolved over the last decade."

As a result, the hospital's interior spaces were designed with child-friendly visual themes to brighten and lighten what could be a threatening, frightening atmosphere. In addition, family-friendly spaces have been included throughout the facility, intended to make it possible for family members to stay close to their hospitalized child.

"When you design a hospital of this type, you have to think of the child, the health-care providers and the patients' families," Miller said.

The new hospital, which is replacing the existing UW Children's Hospital, will contain private rooms only, each zoned for the three groups that will use them.

The bed is obviously the patient's space, although it can be moved slightly to allow families to watch TV together comfortably. The area immediately around the bed is zoned for the health-care providers, giving them room to move about and access to lighting, data ports and the like.

The remainder of the room space is designed with the families in mind. Amenities include in-room workspace for family members, including data ports. The rooms are designed to facilitate a family member staying overnight with the child and are equipped with full baths for the family.

"This is more than a trend: It is actually a well-accepted design solution for creating a healing environment," Miller said. "We are providing a friendly environment for families who are going through what might not be the best of times."

On one of the floors, there will be a Ronald McDonald House facility that will contain four sleeping rooms, family playroom and family kitchen and dining area so food can be prepared. A large fireplace on one floor will provide families a getaway space, and on another there will be a school area with computers and desks and places for kids to play or study.

'All Things Wisconsin'

Throughout the hospital, spaces are themed to create a playful, childlike atmosphere, within an overall Wisconsin motif.

"The design theme is really all things Wisconsin," Miller said. When patients and their families enter the structure, the ground-floor spaces will transition them from a city theme to a small town and then to the country, with the country themes extending to the floors.

"We are going to use false facades to create the images," Miller added.

Constructed much like the facades, or false fronts, found in the themed spaces of Las Vegas casinos, the ground floor will include a small town, complete with a five-and-dime that will house the hospital gift shop, an old-time pharmacy and a theater that can be used for visiting performers or other gatherings.

On the upper floors of the hospital, the themes become more specific to regions of the state. Individual floors will feature themes that include farmland with barns, silos, windmills and tractor tread marks on the floors; a lake with boats, sand and fish; prairie; the north woods; and rivers and falls.

Patients will be given stickers for the themed floor, and staff will wear pins relevant to the themes. Miller said ceilings are included in the themes because patients see so much of the ceilings, but designs are not yet complete.

Because the hospital will treat teens and will accommodate the needs of the patient's families, the themes and their execution are not overly childish, such as images of clowns and balloons. Rather, the Wisconsin themes are regarded as childlike.

Parking, Mechanical Issues

In mid-February, the post-tensioned concrete of the parking garage was nearing completion and crews were getting ready to begin work on the structural steel members of the upper floors.

"This is a fast-track project, so we have started construction and we don't have the final documents yet," Yehle said. Working in this fashion has required "a lot of meeting time to join hands and figure things out," he added.

The building's mechanical equipment has been nested inside the building, complete with sound attenuation and isolation, in order to keep the equipment off the roof where it would be both visible and audible to the adjacent residential neighborhood.

Miller said tucking the mechanicals inside the building also facilitates the hospital's goal of future vertical expansion.

"We designed and calculated the loads for two extra floors," he said. "We also designed the elevators to accommodate two more floors."

Five service-elevator shafts are being constructed at present, but only four will go into service. The remaining one can be extended and put into service at the time of the expansion. An additional passenger elevator shaft is also being constructed for future use.

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