There’s room to move at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC — which means as much to our young patients and their families as do the outstanding clinical services they receive.
At the Elsa M. and Alma E. Mueller Family Resource Center, children and their parents, grandparents, friends and relatives are engaged in numerous activities, just as they would be in Town Square, Anywhere, USA. At the heart of the center is the four-story Eat’n Park Atrium, naturally lit by spacious windows, and only steps away from the Howard Hanna Healing Garden, a rooftop terrace with a breathtaking, panoramic view of Pittsburgh. From the playrooms on the upper floors, kids can look down onto the atrium. Patients unable to leave their floors can view the sights from built-in tables that line the upper hallways. Everyone can enjoy the sparkling lights that transform the atrium into a starry canopy — the perfect setting for the two-story movie screen that turns the “town square” into a movie theater. No one has to miss the feature film.
Families also can visit the nondenominational chapel, find reading material in the libraries in the Family Resource Center, tackle work at the Family Business Center, and relax in comfortable chairs near an (electric) fireplace in the family lounge and solarium. Not far down the hall is the soundproof music therapy room, where kids play instruments and make recordings. There’s even a classroom and Austin’s Playroom, which is open for extended hours.
And all this was designed by children, for children (and their parents, nurses, doctors and staff).
The design decisions for this bustling, inclusive town square came out of in-depth interviews that relied on visual images to elicit the person’s innermost thoughts about what makes a welcoming, lively environment. The outcome is Children’s Hospital, which not only deals with the physical needs of patients, but also the social, psychological and spiritual needs of their entire families.
And it all begins at home. That’s what inspired Pittsburgh artist Mark Bender to draw the Promises’ cover of a boy creating his own sidewalk chalk drawing of a welcoming, dynamic Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC.