How the Texas Children’s Facilities Planning and Development Team Designs Patient-Centered Spaces

At Texas Children’s Hospital, a patient’s experience begins even before a nurse or physician enters the exam room. In fact, it starts with the room and our facility itself. From the finishes on the walls, the floor patterns and the furnishings to the art and wayfinding signs, every aspect of our hospital’s design reflects a patient-centered vision, shaped and brought to life by our Facilities Planning and Development (FPD) team. 

With an architectural background and nearly a decade of experience designing hospitals, the FPD team is led by Gaurav Khadse, known to most as GK. He came to Texas Children’s with a mission to bridge the gap between design and healthcare operations. “After designing several hospitals, it became very evident that there was a need for someone with a design and architecture background to be on the side of institutions as their advocate when the facilities are being designed,” GK reflects. 

Today, GK is responsible for guiding the strategic vision behind every building project at Texas Children’s, from new hospital campuses to renovations of existing spaces. His unique insight allows him to balance aesthetic elements with practical, evidence-based design, ensuring that the environment positively impacts patient outcomes. 

Designing Spaces That Heal 

An interdisciplinary team of professionals works behind the scenes to carefully plan each detail of our facilities, manage design standards across our buildings and more. GK’s FPD team at Texas Children’s is small but mighty, made up of project managers, interior designers, space planners and graphics consultants. The team also includes a real estate group that manages the hospital’s property portfolio. With 30,000 rooms across the organization, it is no small feat to track the function of every space, yet this level of detail is crucial to the hospital’s operations. 

The FPD team ensures that the hospital’s spaces are not only visually appealing and harmonious but also meet functional and safety requirements. When they lay out circulation and signage within buildings, they want the path to be intuitive and easy to navigate as well as imaginative to engage or distract young patients from difficult experiences. 

Every design detail is intentional. From the placement of critical elements like power outlets, thermostats and fire alarms to furniture arrangement, selections are made to enhance the patient experience and improve staff efficiency. “For consistent aesthetics when designing rooms, we manage our art standards and color standards. We have a palette of 20 to 30 colors that are updated and used throughout the system,” says GK. Natural light and whimsical elements like Disney murals play a role in making the hospital more inviting. Carefully chosen finishes evoke specific feelings—whether calming in women’s clinics or playful in pediatric spaces. GK adds, “Evidence shows that architecture of the facility, inviting finishes, daylight and nature-inspired art installations are more conducive to creating a healing environment. Our team ensures we are designing spaces that heal.” This patient-centered approach guides the design of every facility project, creating an environment where children and their families feel cared for from the moment they arrive.  

Navigating The Design Process 

For the FPD team, the design process starts long before the construction phase. Each new facility begins with a vision for the facility. Key considerations include creating a site that is easily accessible and walkable with areas for rest, a facility that has a central theme guiding the design and has flexibility to evolve as needs change. Our North Austin Campus, for example, features a design inspired by the Central Texas landscape. The building’s exterior features locally sourced limestone while the interior levels each have a distinct theme reflective of Austin’s caverns, waterways, limestone ridges. 

The FPD team collaborates closely with departments and clinicians, gathering feedback to ensure each design enhances both care delivery and the overall patient experience. A perfect example of this collaboration is furniture selection. “Before selecting the right type, we evaluate each furniture piece by deploying them in conference rooms across the institution and allowing people to test and give feedback to ensure it meets all the functional, aesthetic and maintenance needs,” says GK. 

Much of the team’s process involves problem-solving. When moving into our Pavilion for Women Tower II, they were faced with the unique challenge of transforming a large, football-field-length floorplate into a more intimate, patient-friendly space. The team achieved this by breaking the space into smaller pods of six to nine exam rooms, each with its own unique graphics and color palette. This pod concept not only made the waiting room less overwhelming but also improved access to the building’s 56 exam rooms.  

“It’s our job to put the framework around an idea, iterate on several designs and then come up with one that promotes the Texas Children’s mission and brand,” explains GK. Whether designing a brand-new campus or reimagining an existing space, the team continues to set the standard for healthcare design—one that prioritizes both function and the emotional needs of the patients and families. 

Creating Healthier Futures through Sustainability 

Because Texas Children’s mission is to create a healthier future for children and families, health care sustainability is an essential consideration in our facility designs and practices. “Texas Children’s as an institution has committed to the goal of reducing our carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 and achieving net-zero by 2050,” says GK, who serves on Texas Children’s Sustainability Team, aka The Green Team. Areas of focus throughout our hospital system are reducing energy consumption through energy-efficient operations like installation of LED lighting, reducing water use, procuring materials with low-embodied carbon, recycling, sourcing food locally and composting food waste. 

With sustainability goals in mind, our FPD team aimed to attain a two-star rating from Austin Energy Green Building Council for the Texas Children’s Hospital – North Austin Campus. They not only met that goal but exceeded it, earning three stars for sustainable design. 

“We were very deliberate in applying sustainability principles,” GK explains, noting features like the recirculation of air conditioning condensate to irrigate the site, efficient mechanical equipment and low-flow plumbing fixtures. 

As Texas Children’s continues to grow and expand, the Facilities Planning and Development team’s work will remain critical to ensuring that every space, from operating rooms to waiting rooms, supports our hospital’s mission. “At the end of the day, it’s about creating environments that make patients and their families feel welcome, safe and cared for,” GK says. “That’s what drives us every day.” 

If you enjoy planning, administration, marketing or technology, Texas Children’s has many rewarding non-clinical careers for people with diverse skills and passions. How can you contribute to our mission of providing world-class health care to children and women? Explore our careers and apply today to Be the Difference at Texas Children’s.