A Unique Healing Garden

President, Synergy Group

The Olson Family Garden is a natural haven in an unusual location. Located atop the 8th floor roof of St. Louis Children’s Hospital in St. Louis, Mo., this therapeutic garden was created to provide young patients and their families a nurturing escape from illness and the often sterile hospital environment. "The purpose of the garden is to enhance the healing environment by providing an air of tranquility and beauty, where children and their families can connect with nature and find a peaceful escape, as if from another world," said Scott Olson, project manager for McGrath & Associates of St. Louis, Missouri, the general contractor on the project.

The $1.9 million garden, funded completely through donations, was designed by a unique team of patients, family members, botanical garden experts, Landscape Architects, architects, engineers, contractors, donors, hospital staff and volunteers. Through a series of workshops led by the Landscape Architect, the team agreed on the following objectives: 1) Provide a place of solace for very sick children and their families, away from the stresses of the hospital environment. 2) Provide opportunities for children to connect with nature, such as smelling plants, interacting with sculpture, touching water, etc. 3) Provide opportunities to increase a child’s interest level through discovery. 4) Provide a sense of acceptance of life’s rhythms through images of healing and wellness. 5) Provide families with a private place to converse with care-giving staff or simply reflect in quiet solitude.

The result is a breathtaking 8,000 square foot Alice-in-Wonderland style oasis where children and their families experience a true respite and connection with nature. Olson Family Gardens is significant not only for the value it brings to these children and their families but also for the design, the complexity of construction, the superb craftsmanship and the diversity of crafts people involved. The project team shared an awareness that they were creating something truly special, and that attitude pervaded the jobsite every day. The result is a work of beauty and art that each craftsman was proud to show his or her family and associates.

Creating a Dynamic Design

The Olson Family Garden is located atop the 8th floor roof of St. Louis Children’s Hospital in Missouri. The garden incorporates 7,500 plants and bulbs, 50 tons of planting soil, 300 recycled tires for the cushioned floor, 150 tons of silica sand, 5,000 pieces of limestone, 50 granite boulders and a 1,500-pound granite water ball.

The whimsical dreams of patients and their families, professional input from hospital staff and the practical knowledge of construction industry professionals all were transformed by the Landscape Architect EDAW, Inc. of Fort Collins, Colorado, the architect Mackey Mitchell Associates of St. Louis and the contractor McGrath & Associates into the layout of this magical garden.

"Our design goals for the garden were very dynamic and diverse, and at times almost conflicting," said Mark Barkenbush, facilities services director for St. Louis Children’s Hospital. "We wanted a place that would appeal to kids and still be interesting to parents, a place where kids could run and play right next to a quiet spot for parents facing a very difficult, life-altering situation. It may sound too good to be true but the garden is everything that we set out to accomplish."

EDAW of Colorado developed the concept and design of the garden. EDAW is a landscape architecture, urban design and environmental planning firm headquartered in San Francisco since 1939. Working in collaboration with hospital staff, architects and engineers, EDAW researched rooftop construction means and methods, suitability of plant materials, safety features for sick children and environments appropriate for healing.

"An 8,000 square foot space is not a large area for a public garden, particularly one with as many objectives as this one had," said Herb Schaal of EDAW. The design EDAW created accommodates a mix of visitors who may be in different states of mind regarding their hospital experiences. Schaal wove together social and intimate spaces, adventure, discovery and play spaces into one harmonious garden design, using only subtle changes of character and layers of separation to provide privacy and suggest appropriate behavior.

Designing With Unity in Mind

The construction phase of the project (below) brought together a wide range of craftsmen such as brick masons, canvas and awning workers, ironworkers, carpenters, cement masons, electricians, stonemasons and glazers.

The fantastic natural environment of the Olson Family Garden was designed to complement the spectacular view of nearby Forest Park. The sky, rooftop views, adjacent building facade, facing rooms and entry hallway provide the context for this project. The view west to Forest Park is truly magnificent and the plan responds with a dramatic overlook and viewing scopes. Other views of unattractive rooftops and hospital expansion construction were screened and controlled through plantings and walls with circular peepholes.

The relationship of the garden to the building was defined by the use of similar colors in the walls. Visibility to and from adjacent hospital rooms was managed with special plantings. The entry hallway was reconstructed along with the garden. The architect worked in collaboration with the Landscape Architects to provide a graceful transition using similar colors, form and textures.

Mackey Mitchell Associates, a St. Louis-based architectural firm, was responsible for detailing the design drawings and determining "how to get the project built," said Dick Kirschner, principal of Mackey Mitchell. "The biggest design challenge was the fact that we were building the garden over an existing Pediatric Intensive Care Unit," said Kirschner. To avoid leaks, the team decided they would not penetrate the roof membrane, which meant they could not tie-on to the structural system of the building. With 20’ walls and canopies installed 100’ off the ground, the wind load created another major challenge.

The therapeutic garden was created to provide young patients and their families with a nurturing escape from illness and the often sterile hospital environment. McGrath & Associates workers gently lower a 1,500 pound, 32" diameter granite water ball carved as a world globe into its granite base.

"It would have been easy to connect to the building structure," said Kirschner. "Instead, we had to convert the usual vertical load to a horizontal load so that walls wouldn’t blow over." Mackey Mitchell designed large concrete spread footings shaped like an upside-down T, which use the weight of the landscaping, the hardscape and the floor itself to hold up the walls.

Other innovative solutions for the unique problems of building on a rooftop included low stone walls which were built of slabs of smooth Kansas limestone, stacked instead of mortared. The security fence featured only vertical bars to provide safety without being too obtrusive. Leaf-shaped shade awnings were created with the help of Lawrence Fabrics.

Even the soil was designed especially for the garden, a mix of fine pure sand and peat designed to provide moisture to plant roots without becoming heavily saturated. An automatic irrigation system ensures optimum moisture for the plantings while a permanent anchoring system keeps trees from overturning in the shallow, sandy soil.

Unique Garden Features

Imported from Finland, the globe floats on a film of water easily pushed by a child's hand.

The garden incorporates 7,500 plants and bulbs, 50 tons of planting soil, 300 recycled tires for the cushioned floor, 150 tons of silica sand, 5,000 pieces of limestone, 50 granite boulders and a 1,500-pound granite water ball carved as a world globe. A winding, cushioned rubber walkway made of colorful recycled tires guides visitors through the special features of the garden while they experience the basic elements of nature: wind, water, earth and sun.

The open vista to the sky is celebrated with a Celestial Plaza that connects users to both the day and night sky. The interactive sundial uses a child’s shadow to point to the correct time. Granite moon phases, constellations and planets are inlaid into the soft plaza paving where kids can walk barefoot or in slippers. Nearby, the huge granite globe floats on a film of water, easily pushed by a child’s hand.

Public spaces are balanced by private gathering places - benches, a gazebo and a chair swing. The vibrant garden features the 9-foot leaf-like canvas canopies on the observation deck, the walkway sundial with etched granite marker stones from India, graceful waterfalls, sculptures and telescopes. Final design and engineering was closely coordinated with the manufacturers of each garden feature.

Challenges of Creating a Floating Garden

Some of the features at the site had to be hoisted by crane from street level to the 8th floor location of the garden.

Limited access to the roof as well as issues of waterproofing, wind proofing and structural modifications provided many unique and complex construction challenges for McGrath & Associates. Only materials which could be brought up by lift were selected. A special drainage system was designed to move water horizontally under the entire garden surface to existing drainage points. All structures are freestanding on top of the drainage system, using only their weight, the spread footings and the planting beds to resist wind loads.

The entire jobsite was located on the 8th floor rooftop of the hospital, directly above the very busy main entrance and emergency room. The only access point to receive and hoist materials was a 20’ wide area, street-side between the main lobby and emergency room doors. Materials and garden features hoisted to the roof had to be installed in place immediately due to limited storage areas. And even though Children’s Place, the heavily traveled main thoroughfare to the hospital complex, was the only location available to park necessary concrete trucks and large cranes used daily in the project, the construction team had to keep this critical main artery open to traffic.

The objects that were moved by crane included the bridges, stepping stones, benches, planters, boulders, soil and plantings.

"The Olson Family Garden contained all the ingredients to be considered an extremely difficult project," said Ted Frey, president and senior executive officer of St. Louis Children’s Hospital. "Our contractor McGrath overcame great odds without disrupting access to important hospital areas."

Overcoming these formidable challenges required detailed and accurate manufacturing and delivery scheduling. The McGrath construction team developed alternative methods to unload and hoist large amounts of heavy materials and equipment. Special devices were required to set much of the structural steel since the crane boom could not reach all of the areas where it was needed.

Designers used computer technology to develop the numerous curves in the garden’s design, many of whose radius centers fell outside the parameter of the roof’s edge. The special curved form work was fabricated in McGrath’s warehouse using shop equipment and layout space which simply was not available on the rooftop.

Since the garden was designed to "float" above the roof without anchoring to the hospital’s roof or structure, taller walls and fencing needed enough mass to avoid being blown down during construction. Special scaffolds were created to erect the 12’ high serpentine walls and fences around the edge of the roof to resist the wind pressure. Daily job inspections were made, with close attention paid to tying down any materials that could be blown off the roof during construction.

The entire roof was waterproofed to protect it from the 30 inches of wet planting medium in the beds. The large amount of piping, conduit, concrete and stone that needed to be placed over the waterproof membrane and mesh drainage system made protection of the waterproof deck a challenge. McGrath’s cost-effective construction solutions allowed them to complete the project within budget and in just six months. Thanks to a strict safety regime, this was a no-lost-time-accident project.

A Team of Craftsmen

The Olson Family Gardens adds a truly unique amenity to St. Louis Children’s Hospital, a world leader in children’s health care. Since this was a one-of-a-kind project, the owners relied heavily on the general contractor and subs to guide the project from design to construction. The opportunity to be involved in this project has positively enhanced the capabilities of the designers, the general contractor and the 17 subcontractors involved.

The skills of nearly every craft-type associated with the construction industry were employed to make this magical garden a reality - brick masons, canvas and awning workers, cement masons, electricians, equipment operators, insulators, laborers, painters, pipe fitters, plumbers, plasterers, roofers, sheet metal workers, ironworkers, carpenters, specialty floor layers, stonemasons, glazers and teamsters.

Almost every material item or construction design was value engineered and a Guaranteed Maximum Price (GMP) was set during the working drawing phase. Project costs were continually compared with the original schematic design budget throughout the design and construction phases and the project was completed under the GMP.

"The craftsmen involved in this project took great pride and interest in the details because of its uniqueness, said Rich Alt, McGrath & Associates superintendent. The owner has encouraged the general contractor and subcontractors to use the garden as a reference site to showcase their own abilities. The Olson Family Garden involved a diverse workforce and met its goals of 10% participation by MBE firms and 5% by WBE firms.

Touching Young Lives

The $1.9 million garden, funded completely through donations, was designed by a unique team of patients, family members, botanical garden experts, Landscape Architects, architects, engineers, contractors, donors, hospital staff and volunteers. One of the most striking elements of the 8,000 square foot garden is the 9-foot leaf-like canvas canopies on the observation deck.

This garden touches the lives of the thousands of patients and families who visit St. Louis Children’s Hospital from all over the world each year, providing a break in the otherwise sterile hospital environment. The garden is a place to connect with the natural world, to touch water, smell a fragrant rose, see a butterfly and hear leaves rustle. It is a nurturing, healthful, hopeful, living environment created to lift the spirits and provide solace, a place with many interesting elements to stimulate compassionate conversation.

The appropriateness of the garden and its visual esthetics were confirmed last summer when nationally renowned consultant on health care environments and healing gardens Helen Orem of Chevy Chase, Maryland, visited. Orem spent several hours exploring and experiencing the Garden, and was in awe with the space and its benefits for children and families. After experiencing the site firsthand, Orem said, "The Olson Family Garden is the best and most innovative in the nation and beautifully solves the problem of children’s isolation in pediatric units."