As the #1 pediatric hospital in the country for nine years running, Boston Children’s Hospital (Boston Children's) is no stranger to pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in healthcare—a mindset that also applies to their approach toward facility design.
When it became clear that the hospital outgrew their space on their main campu
s, Boston Children's embarked on a journey to create new ambulatory space and reinvent the way care and research are experienced.
“The 2 Brookline Place project allowed us to transform and enhance the main campus while enabling us to better serve our neurodevelopmental and behavioral health patients,” said Melissa Aureli, Director of Facilities Planning and Space Management for Boston Children's. “Now, we have a dedicated facility for these patients that is more calming yet still engaging.”
Through purposeful planning with their design and construction teams and close collaboration with the hospital’s Family Advisory Council, Autism Spectrum Family Council, and the Psychiatry Family Council, Boston Children’s Brookline opened the doors to its Brain, Mind & Behavior Center in 2021.
“Our goal was to bring clinical research and patient care together in one convenient place in a way that would enhance the patient experience and positively impact the staff,” said Aureli.
The result was a unique, imaginative, and uplifting space that earned the Center for Health Design’s prestigious Healthcare Environment Award for Alternative Settings in 2021. Committed to positive ‘patient first’ outcomes, the design of the 8-floor, 182,500 SF facility also achieves its strategic goals for workplace well-being, flexibility, and optimized space allocation.
With real estate in downtown Boston at such a premium, Boston Children's partnered with Allsteel and W.B. Mason to develop new office standards for staff that would maximize square footage.
This involved reducing the space allocated to each private office to create more individual workspaces with greater functionality and higher ergonomic performance. Now, for the first time, Boston Children's has dedicated staff space co-located within the same building where care and research are conducted.
The new floorplan design also better supports staff collaboration by adding huddle spaces—a concept not previously used with the former Boston Children's standards. Access to these multi-functional huddle rooms where private calls could be made or meetings conducted helped ease the transition for staff to the newer, smaller individual workspaces.
Understanding that the well-being of caregivers and staff directly impacts the quality of care for patients, Boston Children's purposefully selected furniture that would support and encourage healthy movement and postural change throughout the day.
“Integrating height adjustable tables was new for us, and not everyone saw the value initially,” said Aureli. “But now, our physicians and staff can stand and stretch their legs when they need to and not be sedentary all day. It didn’t take long before everyone bought into the benefits.”
Worker well-being was further enhanced by using demountable glass walls as an architectural solution to infuse spaces with as much natural light as possible. This highly adaptable solution also contributed toward the facility’s goal of futureproofing for evolving needs.
“In the world of healthcare, it’s incredibly important to be responsive to change,” said Aureli. “The flexibility Beyond walls affords us is a real plus. We can easily remove or add to them to create more unassigned touchdown spaces as needed.” By providing an exceptional patient experience and enhancing the experience of work for staff, Two Brookline Place has exceeded all expectations. And the facility continues to contribute added value in other unintended ways.
“Not only has Brookline become a powerful destination for our clinicians to use as a recruitment tool,” said Aureli, “other hospitals and affiliated institutions from around the country are visiting us. We’re now the reference point for how you can create a singular space that makes everyone—from patients and clinical research subjects to staff—truly happy within a healthcare environment.”
Project Details
8 Floors
182,500 sq. ft.
Location:
Boston, MA
Partnerships:
W.B. Mason
isgenuity
Skanska
Product Solutions
Seating:
Evo™, Retreat™
Panels:
Stride®
Tables:
Altitude®
Storage:
Essentials™
Architectural Products:
Beyond®