Thinking Small

Pediatric Hospitals Use Design to Put Kids at Ease

by Elaine Schmidt

Putting children and families first, designers and builders are creating institutions that look and feel nothing like the grim institutions of generations past.

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Several new children’s hospitals in the Midwest reflect a national design trend toward welcoming, nonthreatening spaces designed to create soothing, healing environments.

Midwest Construction sought details on the design approach to three pediatric hospitals in the region.

A Welcome Atmosphere

In Indianapolis, the Riley Hospital for Children is in the fifth phase of a 10-year plan that was announced in 2005. The current phase consists of the 10-story inpatient facility that will be known as the Riley Hospital for Children Simon Family Tower.

The first phase of the 727,000-sq-ft, $235 million tower is scheduled to open in 2009.

“We took the approach that a children’s hospital is as important for families as it is for the children who are coming to the hospital,” says project designer Bryan Strube of Indianapolis-based Ratio Architects. “The experience a family has arriving at the hospital needs to be a positive one.”

To that end, access to the hospital from the adjacent parking facility will be clearly marked, light-filled and easy to navigate.

“We managed to do that by using what we refer to as a logia space that links the parking facility and moves across the front of the patient tower,” he says. “It terminates in a fairly gracious lobby space.”

A whimsical canopy and some exuberant sculptures, including quirky anthropomorphic forms in the support columns, will soften the facility’s feel.

The logia will also provide a departure from the small scale of treatment rooms and inpatient rooms, creating a large, uplifting community space.

“There’s a tendency in children’s hospitals today for the client to want to create a carnival,” adds Ratio project manager Don Jerabek.

But sometimes simplicity suffices. For instance, some windows are placed so only children can see through them.

A Healing Environment

At the American Family Children’s Hospital on the campus of the University of Wisconsin, family-friendly community spaces are part of an environment designed to support all elements of healing.

The $100 million project broke ground in fall 2004. The hospital, which includes shelled space for future expansions, opened in September.

Mike Doiel, senior vice president in Chicago of Omaha, Neb.-based HDR Architecture, says the project’s goal was to create a healing environment less intimidating than the surrounding structures of the university’s medical buildings.

“The new children’s hospital has its own patient entry with parking underneath it,” Doiel says. “By doing that, you take this very large, 300,000-sq-ft campus and create an 80-bed children’s hospital with a reduced scale and a kid- and family-friendly entrance on it and you reduce the intimidation factor.”

The entry and community space that greets patients and their families is filled with gentle references to the small towns— trees trunks, park benches and some store facades—that are an important part of life in Wisconsin. Other elements include a lighthouse and tire tracks on the floor, and the changing of the seasons is depicted.

“It all comes across as genuine vs. cartoonish,” Doiel says. “Some of the new children’s hospitals are just over the top. You want a facility like this to be family friendly and welcoming, but you also want it to be timeless.” In contrast, some facilities for kids can be garish, bright and noisy.

Although children and families were first on the list of priorities, environmental sensitivity ranks high as well.

For instance, the building took up “the last bit of green space” the hospital complex had available, presenting storm runoff issues.

“We used pervious materials and built a catch basin and filtering system that’s all natural and not motorized,” Doiel says. Storm runoff is fed into nearby Lake Mendota.

Another nod to the environment and Madison’s culture of green awareness is near the employee entrance of the hospital, where a bike rack and locker/shower rooms for the employees facilitate biking to work.

At Home in Comer

The 242,000-sq-ft, 155-bed Comer Children’s Hospital on the campus of the University of Chicago was completed in February 2005. The $146 million facility includes a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, Pediatric ICU, cardiac telemetry beds and beds for epilepsy monitoring.

“The overriding philosophy of the hospital is kid friendly and family focused,” says Mark Urquhart, vice president of facilities, design and construction for the University of Chicago Hospitals.

The design looked to everyday details to create a “comfortable, soothing and engaging environment for both kids and adults.”

That vision translates into art with paintings, photos, sculptures and tiles. Technology is available via flat-screen TVs, 24/7 movie availability and wireless Internet access.

Family kitchens and business centers are on the patient floors, and family learning center, laundry and chapel have been included in a central location to ease some of the stresses families experience when spending time in a hospital.

In the patient rooms, a family zone that includes a sleeper sofa, recliner, desk area, storage area and safe also help ease family stress.

Urquhart says there is no central theme to the building’s décor.

“We decided the building would be timeless engaging to diverse populations and easily changed with minimal disruption to operations,” he says. “Art objects as well as technology items can be added to, changed or removed as dictated by desires of the occupants.”

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