Carle Foundation Hospital

a tranquil, year-round respite for patients, family & staff at a world-class healthcare facility

Omni Workshop™ is landscape architect for a new 6,700 SF therapeutic garden at the Carle Foundation Hospital, a world-class, regional healthcare provider in Urbana, Illinois. Located on the facility's sixth floor, the garden provides a transformative, tranquil oasis for patients, staff, and family to escape the intensity of the hospital in a relaxing, nature-filled environment.

Photography by Scott Shigley

The garden is an accessible, year-round space offering fresh air, views, respite, healing, and restoration. It consists of brightly colored trees, shrubs, perennials, and potted plants intertwined with an immersive looping path that enables wheelchair and hospital bed access. Private seating nooks line the path allowing numerous parties of varying sizes to enjoy the space in solitude.

Design criteria included consideration of the existing hospital building’s extremely low structural load capacity and the site’s location above a neonatal intensive care unit. Wind uplift criteria also had to be met, so conforming to stringent loading parameters required careful tuning. Project goals were achieved using an ultra-lightweight horticultural growing media as the rooting substrate supporting plant growth.

The result is a lush ecosystem growing in six inches of growing media.