Children’s Hospital Colorado Staff Lounge, Aurora, Colorado: Photo Tour
Kyla Chambers
Children’s Hospital Colorado Staff Lounge: The expansive kitchen and dining area offer physicians a convenient place to access grab-and-go meals, beverages, and snacks. The large standing-height coffee bar with bar seating serves as a focal point to encourage connections with colleagues. Café tables, bench seating, and a larger family-style table also provide a range of dining experiences and social interactions.
Kyla Chambers
Children’s Hospital Colorado Staff Lounge: Understanding the importance of daylight as a circadian stimulus, especially for physicians who work irregular schedules, designers preserved a wall of floor-to-ceiling windows to bring natural light and outside views into the dining and respite areas. A white mesh screen provides a subtle division of space without blocking any natural light.
Kyla Chambers
Children’s Hospital Colorado Staff Lounge: The enclosed work bay provides a designated quiet place for physicians to chart, conduct confidential conversations or calls, catch up on work or research, or decompress. Glass doors and clerestory panels allow natural light to filter in from the larger room. The double glass doors also maintain visibility to the rest of the lounge, ensuring that physicians remain connected with their colleagues and are not isolated from the broader community.
Kyla Chambers
Children’s Hospital Colorado Staff Lounge: Children’s Hospital Colorado strategically located the new staff room adjacent to the surgical platform, seamlessly integrating the space into the physicians’ workflow. Staff can easily move to and from the lounge during their shift to take a quick mental breather, get meals, or connect with colleagues while remaining close to patients.
Kyla Chambers
Children’s Hospital Colorado Staff Lounge: Multipurpose seating options are strategically placed throughout the space, acknowledging physicians’ unique and often-changing needs throughout their workday. The lounge also offers intimate seating nooks and alcoves where physicians can retreat for some quiet time.
Children’s Hospital Colorado Staff Lounge, Aurora, Colorado
In need of a larger respite space for staff, Children’s Hospital Colorado (Aurora, Colo.) decided to renovate shell space into an expanded staff lounge as part of the hospital’s commitment to the well-being of its staff.
Working with SmithGroup (Denver), the project team led a series of visioning sessions and in-depth workshops with more than 40 physicians and surgeons.
The design team then translated that feedback on staff wants and needs into a modern, light-filled space that’s designed to foster collaboration, relaxation, and rejuvenation.
Updating healthcare staff spaces
Located adjacent to the surgery platform, the new 3,400-square-foot lounge is more than triple the size of the old one. Designers utilized current wellness and workplace concepts to provide alternative spaces and flexibility within the lounge for users.
For example, staff have a choice of collaboration or touchdown spaces as well as places to retreat, relax, and decompress.
Comfortable seating nooks throughout the lounge serve dual purposes, providing space for collaboration, peer-to-peer support, or moments of respite. Private workspaces offer a quiet location for charting and other focused tasks.
One of the standout features of the new lounge is a kitchen and dining area, complete with a high-top coffee bar, where staff can socialize and connect with their peers over a meal or cup of coffee.
Additional amenities include a lactation room, recharge/wellness room, and ensuite restroom.
Children’s Hospital Colorado Staff Lounge, Aurora, Colorado, project details
Location: Aurora, Colo.
Completion date: May 2022
Owner: Children’s Hospital Colorado
Total building area: 3,400 sq. ft.
Total construction cost: $869,600
Cost/sq. ft.: $255
Architect: SmithGroup
Interior designer: SmithGroup
General contractor: McCarthy
Engineer: Cator, Rumor & Associates
Builder: McCarthy
