Healthcare Design - April 2017 - 23

CAREFUL PLANNING

The project team included WHR Architects
(Houston), Stanley Beaman & Sears (SBS; Atlanta), and Overland Partners (San Antonio).
Planning meetings began in August 2012, with
SBS handling non-clinical spaces, interior
architecture, and interior design. (In February, SBS was acquired by Atlanta-based EYP
Inc. EYP previously acquired WHR Architects
in 2014.) WHR contributed major planning
and detail planning for clinical spaces, and the
two firms also collaborated on overall campus
planning. Overland Partners provided exterior architectural services.
Creating a comprehensive academic nonprofit children's hospital in the city entailed
the team renovating nearly the entire 12-story
building. However, administrators wanted to
maximize revenue-and minimize disruptions
to existing patient care during transitions
of adult patients to satellite locations in the
suburbs-so a phased schedule of construction was created to allow existing services,
including the emergency department, NICU,
and ICU, to remain as operational as possible
during construction. The only floors left untouched were the sixth floor (medical records)
and the 12th floor (shell space for future patient rooms) due to budget limitations. In addition to the renovation work, a new two-story
lobby with a chapel and teaching kitchen was
added to the building.
Construction began in mid-2014, with the
lobby build-out launching in October 2014. The
first year of the project included renovations of
the multi-floor patient tower and the groundfloor emergency department. Parents of existing
patients had been polled as part of the pre-design process, and there was strong community
demand for the launch of pediatric emergency
services as soon as possible. Once those spaces
were completed, the buildings adjacent to the
existing lobby were demolished to create space
for the new lobby, which was completed in July
2016. The renovation of diagnostic and treatment wings, started alongside lobby construction, was also completed in 2016. The new NICU
will open this spring. To allow for as many concurrent renovations as possible, diagnostic areas
were tackled by working simultaneously from
the top floors, moving downward, and from bottom floors, moving upward, with contractors
typically working on three to four areas at a time.
Because the existing hospital hadn't been
touched since the '70s, the team had to be ready
to address a few structural surprises, too-in-

RIGHT: Colors from
an exterior mural
were brought inside,
with shades of blue
dominating the design.
A different color was
used on each floor
to delineate between
areas and serve as
wayfinding. BELOW,
RIGHT: An airy, spacious
chapel in the new
lobby features natural
light and bright tones
to inspire hope and
healing. Glowing
lighting in the recessed
ceiling adds a halo-like
effect.

cluding pipes, ducts, and conduits not depicted on floor plans. "Whenever
you have an old facility, you have old structural architectural plans," Gilger says. "That created a lot of interesting issues at times, where we'd find
things unexpectedly and have to deal with them as we went."
Architects and designers worked with hospital administrators to close
selected portions of the hospital, one at a time. For example, Bartlett
Cocke General Contractors would be assigned 10,000 square feet of space
to renovate and ready for occupancy, then a specified department would
relocate from an existing space, and that would free up another part of the
building to renovate. "It was an art form: living in your hospital as you're
rebuilding it," Gilger says. "When the adult patients were moved to other
Christus Santa Rosa hospitals within the city, it created a lot of space, and

APRIL 2017

Healthcare Design - April 2017

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