Winter Wonderland Nationwide Children's

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About the design:

The interior design of Nationwide Children’s is everything a children’s hospital should be: bright, colorful, cheerful, and whimsical. It is a massive building with many large spaces and high ceilings. The first floor public area spans a length of over 1600 feet from the Emergency Department to an outpatient services building, and along the way links multiple other towers, smaller lobbies, and departments. For something of this scale, we needed a holiday display that was more than a large tree in one lobby. We designed and installed 248 trees in clusters of three to seven across the entire first floor, two lower-level cafeterias, and other key floors of the main building. Four dozen “tabletop” arrangements were created for dining tables and restaurant beverage stations, and six 18’ long garlands wrap faux “lampposts” in a main lobby lounge. Trees were placed near reception desks, and hallway corridors, close to visual focal points (like existing furniture, columns, or near entrances to offices) to maximize their visibility and impact. The goal is to walk down the entire length of the first floor hallway and always see a holiday display. Following the design precepts of “Ageless and Timeless, appealing to the Child in All,” the former holiday decorations were reimaged to a more inclusive “Winter Wonderland” theme offering bursts of color and whimsey to offset the grey Columbus winter weather. The winter wonderland holiday decorations are intended to be reflective of the flora and fauna that appear in the environmental graphics. They are not specific to any religion or celebration other than bringing some color into the Hospital during a festive time of year. There is an emphasis on the of Nationwide Children’s Hospital’s corporate colors and some donor relations requests. To reflect the whimsey and color of the interior design features, we swapped out old, discolored white trees for Vickerman's metallic silver trees, and used Vickerman's ornaments and décor in shades of hot pink, dark blue, turquoise, orange, purple, and bright green. The previous design had included only pink, blue, and green, so the incorporation of additional colors was a refreshing change. Selecting silver trees is non-traditional, but their metallic nature makes them sparkle and shine as sunlight comes through the hospital windows. The “toppers” of the trees are composed of glittery picks from Vickerman's that twist, twirl, bob, and feather in an explosion of color and texture. We also love incorporating what we call “Dr. Seuss” trees and we utilize them into several groupings: these 3’-5’ tall, intentionally bent and curved, metallic trees from Vickerman's further adding to the element of playfulness. Nationwide Children’s incorporates butterflies into their logo and branding, so we also made sure to use butterfly ornaments and décor on the trees, creating a “scavenger hunt” effect for visitors and staff who seem to delight in “finding” a butterfly tucked into the holiday decorations. Each year, we review the trees to determine which one need to be "refreshed", ensuring that the design and decor are always looking the best in can. Because the spaces are so large and the budget did not allow for hundreds of 12’ and 15’ trees, we created a way to artificially raise the trees by staging them in tall, silvery-grey containers. Using small, medium, and large containers from Architectural Supplements, we created groupings of small (3-4’), medium (7.5’), and large trees (9’-12’), to strategically create height and fill the larger spaces. Raising the trees up and off the ground was also helpful to the client, as they were concerned about children grabbing or pulling at the trees. To ensure that the trees cannot be pushed or knocked over in their raised containers, we weigh the containers with concrete bricks and secure the trees with custom plywood bases. We manage costs by incorporating varying quantities of décor on the trees—the smallest trees have little to no décor, and the medium and large trees might have décor throughout the whole tree or just on top. The differing levels of décor also help to add visual interest to the tree clusters. Installing this project is a huge undertaking, occurring in the “off hours” on a Saturday morning when the hospital is quiet. Every tree and container pairing is labeled with where it is installed, using nomenclature specific to the hospital. Those wooden wayfinding animals come in handy in identifying where trees are placed—descriptions like “Trio by Duck next to reception desk” are not uncommon. A portion of our team meets at the hospital to receive trucks of trees and containers, while another group stays behind and loads empty trucks. A third team comes through as the trees are placed in their locations and fluffs, straightens, tweaks, checks and fixes lights when needed, and performs any other cosmetic repairs. Install requires our entire staff—even our horticultural technicians and some exterior landscapers join us for the day. After many years of dialing inrefining our process we can now complete the install by late afternoon. Like many reoccurring client projects, this one has evolved over the years, and the current iteration is by far the largest, but also the most closely related to the vision of wonder and whimsy that makes NCH Nationwide Children’s such a special place. Every year, we delight in the response we get from doctors, nurses, patients, and visitors as we set the trees in place and fill the hospital with color and joy.