RMHD is a temporary home-away-from-home that serves and sustains families of seriously ill or injured children receiving treatment in a Dallas hospital.
Designed by HKS Commercial Interiors, in tandem with HKS Architects, the facility not only provides bedrooms for children’s families but offers six transplant suites for children receiving bone marrow and organ transplants. As a signature design element, the house includes a beacon so that children staying in one of the nearby hospitals can see the light at night and know that their family is close at hand.
The house is designed to serve 60 families each night, and maintains the ‘home-like’ feel. The new house features 60 bedrooms, a library, chapel, outdoor play space, meditation garden and common living areas. The facility features a day respite room designed to allow non-resident families with children in local hospitals to gather, enjoy snacks, access the Internet, do laundry, or simply relax. A large courtyard with a labyrinth, covered porch and pavilion with outdoor grills and sport court are other distinctive features. The exterior of the building is designed to mimic buildings from the Texas Hill Country, featuring cream-colored limestone and horizontal lap siding.
According to DeSantis, principal-in-charge at HKS, the biggest challenge the design team faced was to create the warmth of a home in a 60,000 square foot footprint without the interference of institutional look. In order to achieve this objective, the facility is conceived as a series of connected neighborhoods. Each neighborhood wraps around and feed into a central courtyard. The children’s areas have been placed in close proximity to an adult supervision area within the dining room.
Beacon of Hope, the house’s public capital campaign, raised $13.6 million of the $14.1 million goal. The total project cost is $24.1 million. In its 28-year history, the Ronald McDonald House of Dallas has served as a home-away- from-home for more than 25,000 families of seriously ill children who have traveled to Dallas seeking medical treatment in area hospitals. The new building is located in the Southwestern Medical District near Children’s Medical Center and Texas Scottish Rite Hospital for Children, the two largest referring hospitals to the Ronald McDonald House.
