Array Architects Blog Exterior Design Feature: Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters Mental Health Tower

Co-authored by Marc Mendoza, a Lead Designer at Array When you exit the US-58 Midtown tunnel by car in Norfolk, VA, there it is: the gleaming, angular, striking exterior of Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters’ (CHKD) new 14-Story Pediatric Mental Health Tower. The Array-designed facility was purpose built to help CHKD counter unsettling trends affecting our country. One in five children has a diagnosable mental health condition, and early intervention can save lives. In response, CHKD created their Lighting the Way campaign to increase mental healthcare availability, and this pavilion serves as the centerpiece of it. As such, our design team worked in close collaboration with CHKD to create an aesthetic and movement of the exterior befitting its importance to the community and celebrating meeting the challenge of expanding care access and destigmatizing mental healthcare.