We are pleased to announce PAYETTE’s second consecutive AIA Healthcare Award is awarded to Penn State Health Children’s Hospital Vertical Expansion. The Healthcare Design Awards showcase the best of healthcare building design, healthcare planning and healthcare design-oriented research.
When the Children’s Hospital opened in 2012, it marked the completion of a ten-year transformation of the Hershey Medical Center campus that began with its Cancer Institute. During the design stage, the base 4-story building was developed with a vertical expansion in mind. The three-story expansion was completed in 2021 and adds 133 new inpatient beds, including a new Women and Babies Center that provides 9 Labor and Delivery Rooms, 36 Post-Partum/Ante-Partum beds, a state-of-the-art C-Section suite, a new 56-bassinet Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), a Continuing Care Nursery and Pediatric Acute Care Unit.
Through the master planning, the Hershey Medical Center campus was conceived as a garden hospital, structured around a rich network of courtyards and gardens, connecting occupants with nature. In the Children’s Hospital, a rich palette of shapes, colors and materials further communicate the theme of healing through nature. The theme of nature extends into the Vertical Expansion. The themes of “Blossom” and “Treetop Bird Nest” identify the Women and Babies Center, guiding the selection of finishes and colors with integrated environmental graphics which create an uplifting healing environment that brings hope and joy to patients, families and visitors.
We not only expanded care but have integrated mom, neonate, baby, child and adolescent care all under one roof. The reality is our facilities are world-class. The expertise is as well. Everything we do is with a focus on children. You won’t get better care anywhere else in the world.
Dr. Shawn Safford, Division Chief of Pediatric Surgery
© Robert Benson Photography
The 2025 OpenLAB Boston studio work will be exhibited at Virginia Tech Monday, March 2nd through Wednesday, March 4th.
Please join us for the following events on Monday, March 2nd:
11:00am - Lecture with Parke MacDowell
1:00pm Lobby talk with Kevin Sullivan
This year’s studio identifies seven sites along the frayed edges of Boston’s Greenway. The Greenway is a one-mile-long linear park running through the heart of the city, reconnecting downtown Boston with its waterfront. Many of the parcels along its edges remain undeveloped and present mute, blank facades to the public realm. Addressing and repairing these edges through acts of infilling, layering, grafting, framing, and placemaking is the core focus of the studio—SUTURE.