In 2012 UPMC created a design competition for local landscape architecture students to create a “Living Visual Barrier” for both Shadyside Hospital and Mercy Hospital. I entered the competition with two classmates and a professor and we won the design for Mercy Hospital, which was never built. So it was quite surprising a few years later to find that our design for Shadyside Hospital’s “green wall” was in fact being built.
UPMC Shadyside
Pittsburgh, PA
The courtyard of the Emergency Room entrance at UPMC Shadyside was originally designed with utility maintenance in mind, but modifications to the hospital have turned this area into a primary entrance. The intent was to shield the visual and auditory noise of utilities from those who were entering the emergency room. Rather than propose a resource intensive hydroponic green wall system, a tray system with drip irrigation was designed to reduce resource consumption while still blocking views and dampening utility noise. Ultimately the design was transformed and color blocks were added by the company who won the actual bid for construction drawings, but our general design concept stayed true to form.
