UVA Children's Experience Design System/ 2021-24

UVA Children's Experience Design System was developed as a four-year initiative to transform the seventh floor into a cohesive, child-centered environment. What began as a wayfinding challenge expanded into a broader effort to improve orientation, emotional comfort, and consistency across the patient and family journey.

The design framework used an American landscape narrative, organizing spaces into river, plains, forest, and mountain zones. This structure guided environmental branding, signage, interior graphics, storytelling, and immersive media so each area had a distinct identity while remaining connected to one unified system throughout the Battle Building.

The outcome was an integrated experience platform where communication, spatial design, and digital content worked as one layer rather than separate additions. Large-format graphics improved legibility, signage clarified movement, and immersive storytelling supported waiting, play, and recovery, while leaving a scalable foundation for future phases.