St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Kay Research

Jeffrey Jacobs

St. Jude Children's Research Hospital Kay Research and Care Center

• Architectes

The non-profit pediatric treatment and research facility, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, asked that the design for three Intensive Care Unit inpatient floors in their new Kay Research and Care Center be “magical and whimsical”. That the experience on each floor, from the moment of arrival, “engage the child”, “tell a story”, “be fun”, and “appeal to all ages”. Since the nature of care provided for patients at St. Jude requires that children and their families be admitted for months at a time, the design had to provide respite from the stress of their situation, whether through imaginative play or immersive distraction.

Each floor is themed differently: Nature’s Orchestra; Discover The Sea; and Explore Space. Each theme informs the color palette; custom graphic design, artwork selection, furniture selection, and interior design for each floor. In partnership with AV/IT and digital content consultants we designed custom interactive feature walls that incorporate the custom graphic design and enhance the overall interior design.

As an introduction to each floor’s theme, there is a 50-foot long interactive Journey Wall that guides children from their arrival by elevator to the ICU entry. Within each unit are seventeen Family Suites, each includes a spacious Patient Room and an adjoining Parent Room that allows families to feel as much at home as possible. To encourage the children to get out of their rooms and socialize and play with others, there are interactive Discovery Walls and Shadow Boxes in the Patient Corridor, as well as a Play Room, a Pre-Teen Room and a Teen Room.

Central to all three floors is an Imagine Room, which is a multi-purpose immersive space that can display themed biomes so families can escape to the woods, or to the beach, or to outer space. The room can also display custom gestural interactive games or create a stage for a puppet show… whatever a child can imagine.

This children’s cancer center has been designed to captivate a child’s imagination and to involve them in an exploration beyond the realm of illness. The high-tech interactive environment acknowledges the child of the modern age, and introduces entertainment as a part of the healing process.

The project design is thoroughly integrated and promises the “magical and whimsical” experience for all children. Patients and parents love the space: “They make it to the point of, ‘I don't want to leave, because it's really cool here’," says parent Christopher Bridges.

Material Used :

Finishes by Application:

Rubber Flooring – Mohawk

Walls – Sherwin Williams

Wall Tile – Ceramic Technics + Crossville

Wall Protection – CS Acrovyn

Ceilings - Armstrong

Textured Wall Panels – Modular Arts

Wall Coverings – Xorel

Custom Graphic Glass Panels – Skyline Glass

MDF Wood Panels – Flakeboard

Solid Surface – Dupont Corian