Renown Tahoe Tower NICU/PICU
The patients, families, and staff in an intensive care unit face extreme, difficult emotions on a regular basis. We wanted to make their lives a little easier. As part of a sweeping functional and aesthetic transformation for Renown Health, we designed this new pediatric and neonatal ICU to be both highly efficient and emotionally restorative.
With custom art inspired by Reno’s community and local environment, the unit embodies the spirit of the region and softens the clinical look of intensive care. A cheerful, immersive nature theme gives young patients a mental escape, leading them from elevator lobby to patient room as if through playful meadows to a campground under the starry skies of Lake Tahoe.
This space also incorporates the latest in material health, infection prevention, and evidence-based design for a resilient and sustainable environment that looks after its occupants.
For a playful experience appropriate to its audience, we consulted a very engaged group of pediatric nurse managers and physicians to better understand their patients. The result—cheerful, vibrant, approachable—captures children’s imaginations and offers positive distraction.
The design concept evokes the calming power and intuitive guidance of natural rhythms and landscapes in a journey of color, light, and art. It taps into the way stars help us navigate and how our internal clocks respond to light. The immersive experience begins in the elevator lobby and continues through cozy patient rooms on the PICU side, while the NICU side supports families staying for extended periods with a more soothing aesthetic.
—Kristen Cleveland-Ceballos, Renown Manager of Nursing
“Art can be a beautiful, non-judging vessel that can hold all the confusion, the fear, the pain, and the hopes of the viewer. Art speaks to the soul, heart, and mind. It speaks to the whole person, just like the best of the healthcare professionals on staff at Renown Health. The art displayed at Renown spoke to my broken heart, damaged spirit; it lifted my soul again and again.”
—Dan Callis, father of a Renown patient
The NICU feels safe and calming. Extensive glazing allows clinicians to easily see one another and monitor patients, and decentralized nurse stations support faster response times. Circadian rhythm lighting and large glowing drum lights make the space feel homey and familiar, also helping regulate the newborns. With views of a beautiful mountainscape from the NICU bays, families can feel connected to nature and soothed by a sense of openness. Also comforting are the subtle touches—furniture and clocks in Renown’s brand color, purple—that act as reminders of the high quality of care being provided.
