University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, Stead Family Children's Hospital

Healthcare

ZGF, in association with Heery Design, provided interior design for the 14-story Stead Family Children’s Hospital, part of University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. The patient-centered healing environment consolidates pediatric services that were previously scattered across campus into a single location, streamlining the hospital’s model of care, minimizing waste, and enhancing outcomes by unifying care teams. The hospital includes 189 acute critical care beds, a new NICU, imaging, dialysis and infusion, and a pediatric cancer center.

Location

Iowa City, Iowa

Square Feet

507,000

Completion date

2017

Project Component

Interior Design

The interior design was inspired by the hospital’s belief that “individual interdependent pieces can come together to create a greater whole” and is revealed in a quilt theme that tells the story of Iowa’s landscape and natural habitats—farmlands, wetlands, woodlands, and prairies. A warm, inviting color palette and environmental graphics draw the eye upward and around the space and add visual interest.

Evironmental Graphics and Wayfinding

Building on the quilt theme and the hospital's brand, each of the 14 floors is represented by a quilt icon, grouped into four Iowa regions: farmlands, woodlands, wetlands, and prairies. The color of each icon gradates through the color spectrum from the bottom floors to the top: farmlands are red, orange, and yellow; woodlands are green; wetlands are blue; and the prairie is purple.

After establishing the floor icons and wayfinding strategy, murals were designed to serve as landmarks and positive distractions for patients and families. Each floor's core is wrapped with fiber-reinforced laminate panels depicting the quilt icons and regions in their respective colors.

To reinforce the quilt concept, all mural graphics were created from designs found in patterned quilts—varied, subtle, modern, and layered for visual interest. Patterns are vivid and candy-colored at nurse stations for easy wayfinding for family members and include a backlit element from the adjacent mural to provide additional visual interest and positive distractions.

"The hospital is designed to promote a sense of discovery and whimsy within all the spaces. It is meant to be a place that helps alleviate families' fear and lets them know they are going to be well taken care of."

- Scott Turner, Former Executive Director of UI Children's Hospital

When arriving on a patient floor, parents and children are greeted by an icon at check-in to create texture and visual interest at a large scale.

Patient room doors feature regional scenes concentrated in the lower and upper portions to ensure caregivers have clear sightlines into the room while giving patients a sense of privacy.

The design process involved the use of full-scale mock-ups of patient rooms and procedural areas to allow users to experience the space and provide feedback on the effectiveness of the design.

Lobby Art

ZGF’s interior design team collaborated with artist Larry Kirkland on the main lobby. Kirkland designed four types of artwork that invite discovery and provide positive distraction, including:

The Blooming Wall

Wrapping the curved walls in the lobby, triangular-shaped panels give the effect of colorful vertical blinds. Panels are varying shades of blue, green, and purple, gradually intensifying and “blooming” before fading to white. The effect varies in appearance with the sun and when viewed up close or far away. The colors and movement are reminiscent of driving by farmland at dusk.

Terrazzo Floors

Four different areas in the terrazzo floor offer an “I Spy” experience for kids and adults alike, embedded with outlines of common objects such as animals and household tools. Only one item can be found in all four sections: a four-leaf clover.

Wind Vanes

Six towering sculptures, known as wind vanes, look like large stacks of alphabet blocks. Each piece represents two Iowa communities. Colorful graphics reflect unique aspects of each place, such as an event, industry, or natural area located there. Each wind vane features a decorative piece at the top that rotates like the real wind vanes that inspired them.

Vitrines

Playful artwork inside six glass-covered window displays that showcase different themes. One includes alphabet blocks as well as toys and small figurines that start with each letter of the alphabet.