The new inpatient facility spanning 48,000 square feet, designed by multi-disciplinary architecture firm S/L/A/M Collaborative and Architecture+, features 60 private rooms relocated from semi-private rooms in the hospital’s 79-year-old main building.

Originally designed as a long-term residential facility, the hospital’s main building was not able to cope with the needs of a short-term, acute inpatient program with shorter stays. This prompted the construction of new inpatient facility. The addition joins the existing hospital in two places, creating an enclosed courtyard. The new facility triples the hospital’s inpatient space in the hospital’s main building, the Laufer Building.

All the rooms are arranged in small pods in order to ensure privacy to the patients and their families. The pod arrangement also helps the staff to closely monitor and quickly respond to patients’ needs, allowing the hospital to be more flexible when admitting patients. The building has also been designed to be welcoming and inviting for children and adolescents, with walls painted in comforting shades of yellows, blues and greens. There are also dedicated spaces for indoor/outdoor and formal/informal interaction.

One of the most notable aspects of the project is an innovative ‘door beside a door’ feature at each room. In addition to a standard door that opens into the room, there is also an 18-inch leaf built into the frame next to the standard door. In the event that a child barricades the door or blocks entry into the room, the leaf door swings out into the corridor, providing staff with access to the room without having to break down the standard door.

The new building houses the hospital’s Child and Adolescent Inpatient Programs and Center for Autism and Developmental Disabilities (CADD), which share the first floor, with each unit serving 15 patients. The second floor is occupied by the Adolescent Inpatient Program.

Gilbane Building Company provided construction management services to the addition opened in April 2009.

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