The main waiting room at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center’s Pediatric Day Hospital is subdivided by “rolling sails,” custom stainless steel and stretched fabric creations designed to allow the users to reconfigure the seating areas into smaller pods for privacy within the larger space. The waiting area’s 70′ north wall is a “moving museum.” In partnership with local artists, patients and the children of staff create the artworks displayed here. To the south, the waiting room opens to the playroom.

The light in the playroom is filtered through a perforated metal ceiling and walls, creating a glowing box while still affording views of the skylight structure and the sky beyond. The walls facing the waiting area are butt-glazed, Starfire glass, with a sculptural wall 20′ high and 70′ long, soaring up into the skylight and completing the enclosure of the room.

Project category: New construction & Remodel/Renovation (completed July 2004)

Chief administrator: George Mejias, Director, Design and Construction, (212) 639-7868

Firm: Granary Associates, (212) 768-8886

Design team: John J. Cummiskey, Principal-in-Charge; Mahmoud Mehrabian, AIA, Project Executive; James D. May III, AIA, LEED AP, Project Architect; Jennifer K. J. Kenson, Senior Interior Designer (Granary Associates); George Mejias, Director, Design and Construction (Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center)

Photography: © Paul Warchol Photography

Total building area (sq. ft.): 18,630 (new); 28,806 (renovation)

Construction cost/sq. ft.: Not released

Total construction cost (excluding land): Not released

To the west the plane of the wood-paneled wall with dancing colored lights is used as a wayfinding device, cutting through the space and orienting patients. Portals defined by colored light and matching paint punctuate the wood-paneled wall and are used to transport patients through to destination areas. Following the wood-paneled wall south leads you to the treatment area.

Designed as a large, open plan filled with light, the treatment area is broken down into smaller components by vertical planes of color, wood, and glass. Each treatment bay acts as a personal refuge for the patient, completely adaptable and filled with amenities.

The visual connections that exist between the interior spaces bring the patients together, reinforcing the community that is the Pediatric Day Hospital.