UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland Outpatient Center, Designed by HDR and Taylor Design, Opens to Patients

UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland unveiled its new Outpatient Center, designed in partnership by HDR and Taylor Design. The new six-story, state-of-the-art facility adds 89,000 square feet of exam rooms, treatment facilities, and family support services, making UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland the East Bay’s largest specialty care center for kids.

Designed as a LEED for Healthcare Silver facility, the project embodies the visions and ideas of its neighbors and community, integrating with the existing medical campus, and the north Oakland neighborhood in which it resides. The corner location on Martin Luther King Way allows the building to create a gateway, welcoming visitors to the campus as they pass its colorful glass and panel façade. Punctuated along the exterior surface, colored boxes create cozy windowsills with views of the street activities below. The design elements strive to create a harmony with the existing hospital building, while taking a bold leap forward, celebrating Children’s Hospital Oakland’s second century of pediatric healthcare. The overarching design story of “On to Greatness” mirrors the healing process as those who visit Children’s Oakland go onward, to live full, rich lives.

Through active floor patterns, art installations and super-graphics in clinical care areas, patients and their families are offered a positive distraction, encouraging a positive state of mind. Each clinical floor has its own color palette and carries an aspirational theme: Hope, Growth, Reach, Soar, and Dream. The inspiration for this concept was based on a child’s journey and their healing experience on UCSF Benioff’s campus. The result is a bright, playful environment filled with vibrant graphics, and local children’s artwork that engage children and enhance exam room walls.

Comments from the Team

 “Our focus was always with the facility’s connection to the children and community,” said Todd A. Tierney, AIA, Architecture Regional Director and Senior Vice President, HDR. “The new outpatient care center is designed to create a safe and protective environment where families can actively participate with the caregivers in the care of their child.”

“The design team worked with physicians, families, staff, neighbors and patients to create a vision for the masterplan so that it reflects the greater voice of the hospital’s community,” said Aaron Hanigan, Senior Project Architect, HDR. “When the people will make use of the facility are involved in the early concepts of the design phase, that facility can address the needs of many, bringing the services and requirements that keep that particular community healthy and safe to the forefront.”

“We focused on designing through the eyes of children,” said Allison Couture, lead interior designer, Taylor Design. “Our design concept is about celebrating the unlimited potential which lives within all children.”

About HDR’s Healthcare Experience

At HDR, we blend our deep knowledge of healthcare delivery with our understanding of how environments can shape behaviors and outcomes to create solutions for clients that respect the human impact of their work — solutions that champion human-centered design, solve real problems, make lives better and advance wellness, well-being, healing and cures.

About HDR

For more than a century, HDR has partnered with clients to shape communities and push the boundaries of what’s possible. Our expertise spans nearly 10,000 employees, in more than 200 locations around the world — and counting. Our engineering, architecture, environmental and construction services bring an impressive breadth of knowledge to every project. Our optimistic approach to finding innovative solutions defined our past and drives our future.

About Taylor Design

Taylor Design is a strategy-based design firm with practices in Architectural Design, Interior Design and Design Strategy; with offices in northern and southern California. Since 1979, the firm has built a national reputation in the healthcare design industry and has since established a growing presence in the education, science & technology, and senior living market sectors. Taylor Design works with clients to discover, develop, and design solutions for the built environment. Clients of the firm have included: UC San Francisco Medical Center; Stanford University; SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory; UC Berkeley; San Mateo County; Scripps Health, San Diego; UC San Diego Health System; UC Irvine Health; Hoag Health Network; as well as numerous service areas for Kaiser Permanente, among others. For more information on the firm visit www.WeAreTaylor.com