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Background

To design the largest children’s hospital in the world, of significance to national, regional and global health care precedence. It is the first consolidated pediatric care model in the Middle East, designed experientially, through variance in scale

HKS architects proposed a crystalline design connecting the historic traditions of science, healing, and the life-supporting nature of water. The podium’s solid masonry shell wraps the precious treatment functions it protects. The healing tower rises above with a glimmering façade of facetted metals and glass, reflecting and filtering light through a layered shade screen. Building surface materials—masonry, metal, and glass—and their treatments respond to the harsh environmental conditions of the desert. Penetrations in the skin allow windows and ventilation points, each derived from the triangular crystal form of the overall concept.