Children's Medical Center
Augusta, Ga.
Stanley Beaman & Sears Architecture

Playful, childlike forms serve the needs of a level-one trauma center

© Jonathan Hillyer/Esto

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By John E. Czarnecki, Assoc. AIA

The Children’s Medical Center is adjacent to existing hospital buildings on the college’s campus, and the old children’s hospital was within those buildings. The Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the University Hospital are located on blocks immediately surrounding the campus, resulting in an overly sterile, institutional environment. Not surprisingly, the college wanted to create a new building with a unique image—one that did not necessarily look like a hospital.

The architects developed a graceful, five-story, 98-bed children’s hospital that is both a level-one trauma center and, according to the firm’s design statement, also has a "childlike sense of wonder" and is "playful enough for the toddler, but cool enough for the adolescent."

The design of the entire structure is based on a 5-foot grid in plan, section, and elevation. The exterior is composed of precast-concrete panels that look like oversize Legos, and large forms, such as a red square on the top floors and a blue cube on the northern facade, add playful variety.

At the main entrance, a curving glass-and-steel form appears to reach out and beckon visitors to the lobby. Inside, multiple curving forms are intended to suggest movement, stretching, changing—growth and transformation. Video technology is implemented to give glimpses of nature: A "video aquarium" is a wall of monitors in the lobby that display images of underwater scenes, and vertical stacks of monitors (opposite) showing images of nature enliven the corridor on the second and third floors that the firm calls the "technological arbor," along the northern portion of the building.

The technological arbor has a canted two-story glass wall with enlarged silkscreened circuit-board patterns that give the appearance of organic, foliagelike imagery on the glass panes.

The abstract foliage motif continues inside the technological arbor, where both window boxes and Eterboard walls with indented patterns of dinosaurs and foliage are at child height to enable children to see and touch. There are also plastic and metal panels in the ceiling (opposite) that resemble circuit boards.The 98 patient rooms on the fourth and fifth floors are all single rooms and have sleeping space for two parents, if needed.

See the July 2002 issue of Architectural Record for full coverage of this project.

Formal name of Project:
Children's Medical Center , Medical College of Georgia

Location:
Augusta, Ga.

Gross square footage:
220,000 sq. ft.

Total construction cost:
$42 million

Owner:
Contracting Agency:
The Board of Regents of the State of Georgia

Using Agency:
The Medical College of Georgia

Architect:
Stanley Beaman & Sears Architecture
135 Walton Street NW
Atlanta, Georgia 30303
Phone: (404) 524-2200
FAX: (404) 524-8610