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
Opening later this year, the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard in Cambridge, MA is an essay in the tuning of building façades for performance. The aluminum sunshades that veil the building began as a concept tested by scoring Bristol paper. The team utilized tools from all modalities: paper models, CNC-mills, parametric studies, solar analysis, wind and water simulations and full-scale mock-ups to inform the design and drive energy use down. The ultra-high performance building is tracking a 61% reduction in energy use compared to the 2030 baseline.
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