Project Highlight: Solace For All at University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital

Chapels in healthcare settings have taken on new life in recent years, transforming into more than places of worship. Many of the spaces, outfitted with movable furniture and walls, are serving multi-functional purposes by hosting community events, weddings, and funerals. They’re also catering to diverse groups by emphasizing an interfaith approach. Here’s a look at three recent projects that reflect these broadening trends.

University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital

A new chapel at the University of Minnesota Masonic Children’s Hospital in Minneapolis offers a nondenominational place for patients and families to find peace under difficult circumstances.

The Quinn Seymour Chapel is named after a girl who died in April 2012 of a rare, incurable skin disorder when she was 8 months old. During Quinn’s long stay, her parents, Marc and Mandy Seymour, encountered challenges in seeking an appropriate environment for prayer, so they set a goal of raising $500,000 to build the chapel. More than 500 people donated, while many others contributed their time and energy, and about 130 attendees joined in the opening ceremony in late March 2016. Striving toward inclusivety of faiths, the space contains a mural of the Virgin Mary as well as a window oriented toward Mecca.

Prayer Tree

Other unique elements include a prayer tree made of impact-resistant steel. Visitors are invited to write their wishes on slips of paper and insert them into holes in the tree, representing leaves. Additionally, an expansive wall mosaic serves as textured and durable artwork that invites children to touch a coral reef, whale, bear, and deer set in fired and glazed clay.

The selected imagery, with a focus on nature, arose from community focus groups identifying the creatures, words, and colors that potential visitors “wanted to see that would give the most hope,” says Tisha Moore, lead chaplain. The elements, she adds, are “childlike without being childish.”

Fiber-optic lighting mimics a sky with stars in a constellation resembling the Milky Way galaxy. Dimmable lights can be programmed to cast a halo or a rainbow of other options, she says.

Positioned adjacent to a windowed corridor, the chapel borrows natural light to illuminate a circular room shaped like a basilica. Its own windows begin 7 feet up the wall and extend in a continuous ribbon around the room. While protecting privacy, the design also “draws your eye up” and “gives you a sense of lift,” says Matthew Carlson, an architectural intern at HGA (Minneapolis), which designed the chapel.

Source: http://www.healthcaredesignmagazine.com/trends/interior-design/new-chapel-designs-offer-solace-all/#slide-3