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Designing the future of pediatric medicine

Boston Children’s Hospital

Hale Family Building

Boston, MA

In 1912, we broke ground on our first project with Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH). More than a century later, we’re partnering with BCH again, this time to spearhead the largest expansion in its history.

The 11-story Hale Family Building, which anchors the most ambitious reimagining of its facilities, addresses critical capacity needs and its delivery of high-level tertiary and quaternary care. With four underground floors, the building includes the expansion of acute care and critical care beds, diagnostic and treatment services, and clinical support services.

A distinguishing design feature included the creation of interconnected indoor and outdoor garden spaces to act as preferred amenities and offer positive distractions for patients, families and employees in the middle of a dense urban environment of Longwood Medical Area.
The newly named Boston Children’s Benderson Family Heart Center, located on the 6th floor of the Hale Family Building, replaces multiple occupancy patient rooms with single patient rooms, optimizes the patient experience and creates a state-of-the-art comprehensive platform for cardiovascular services, reinforcing the Hospital’s reputation as a top-ranking Heart Center. Under the new unified platform, physicians and staff from all of the Benderson Family Heart Center’s disciplines will work hand-in-hand to provide comprehensive cardiac care for patients at Boston Children’s.
Photo courtesy of The Boston Globe
The clinical building resulted from Shepley Bulfinch’s 2015 Master Plan which addressed long-term strategies for healthcare service delivery on the hospital’s highly constrained core campus in Boston’s Longwood Medical Area. During the Master Planning process, Shepley conducted a ‘shadowing exercise’ for the Heart Center whereby the team observed and documented day-to-day activities of the clinicians. Full-scale cardboard mock-ups and simulations with the goal of improving patient safety and comfort influenced the planning process. Shepley Bulfinch has been involved continuously in multiple iterations of Boston Children’s Master Plan on Longwood Main Campus since 2008.

#1 pediatric hospital in the United States

US News & World Report for 2024-25

2024 IIDA Healthcare Design Awards, Pediatric Hospitals Winner

International Interior Design Association

Mikyoung Kim Design acted as the landscape architect for both interior and exterior gardens.

All images © Robert Benson Photography