In July 2015, the University of Rochester Medicine completed a significant expansion of its Golisano Children’s Hospital, the Strong Memorial Hospital Bed Tower. The 245,000 square foot addition included a brand new, nine-story building that is home to a wide range of pediatric services and features visually engaging spaces to amuse young patients and visitors. With the help of Ballinger, ArtHouse Design created fun, custom themes for each floor of the new facility. This allowed Golisano Children’s Hospital to achieve its goal of creating a diverse pediatric care environment, full of playful activity.

Design Goals: 

As part of the region’s leading care providers, Golisano Children’s Hospital is a center for a wide variety of pediatric care services. While keeping functionality a top priority, the design team’s aim was not only to create a calm and healing experience on each floor of the hospital’s new building, but also to deliver optimum durability demanded of an active children’s care center. It was important to the hospital to have all themes and images relate to the geography of the greater Rochester and Upstate New York area.

Results: 

The team used the design possibilities of Acrovyn by Design to create a space that enables patients and families to feel at ease, fostering a sense of relaxation and recovery in patient rooms and throughout the hospital.  Illustrations with simple lines and subtle tones create murals of intrigue in patient rooms and throughout the hospital.

With meadows, lakes and parks, each floor has a unique theme that includes graphics, icons and colors embedded behind impact-resistant, PVC-free rigid material. The neonatal intensive care unit is identified as the Meadow floor, with images of children lying in the grass lining the halls. The ground floor of the hospital, home to the imaging services, is called the Lake floor. Its walls are filled with children playing in the water and fishing. General care for younger children takes place on the seventh, or Park floor, where high resolution images of children playing on swings and in the snow line the walls. Between the patient rooms there are silhouettes of recreational items often found in parks, such as rope swings and kites.  

On the eighth floor, a general care area for older children and teens, the atmosphere mimics the city. Walls are filled with children creating art with sidewalk chalk and playing hopscotch, while cars and bikes add to the metro scene. The transport elevators feature a stylized forest to help allay fears and offer a distraction while riding in them. 

The new building enriches the patient experience while guiding staff members and visitors with clear, design-consistent wayfinding and signage elements. “When developing a concept for our new building, we wanted the hospital to focus on making a patient’s time here much more comfortable,” said Kusrin Dhamawongse of Ballinger Architects. “With Acrovyn by Design we turned each of our nine floors into neighborhoods. In addition to creating uniquely welcoming spaces, Acrovyn by Design keeps our walls and corridors protected. It was easier to install and more budget-friendly than custom printed vinyl. In fact, we are now eager to install Acrovyn by Design where we had originally planned for vinyl.”

The hospital’s design team also turned to Construction Specialties Inc. -- the manufacturer of Acrovyn by Design -- for other wall protection products like corner guards and handrails, resulting in a seamless design.