Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania - Pavilion

Engineering the Future of Healthcare

The Penn Medicine Pavilion is a state-of-the-art, 1.5-million-square-foot, 17-story hospital facility featuring 504 inpatient rooms, 47 operating rooms, and a two-story emergency department with 61 exam rooms. Designed by the PennFIRST integrated project delivery team—Foster + Partners, HDR, BR+A, L.F. Driscoll, Balfour Beatty, and Penn Medicine experts—the Pavilion represents a bold vision of the "hospital of the future," blending flexibility, patient-centered design, and sustainability. As the world’s largest healthcare project to achieve LEED v4 Gold certification, it’s an iconic addition to Penn Medicine's campus.

The Challenge

Constructing a high-tech hospital with a bold, sculptural design presented a complex set of challenges, particularly around stability and sequencing during construction. Thornton Tomasetti’s construction engineering team provided critical services, including steel erection analysis, temporary stability analysis, and engineering support for the steel erector, Berlin Steel. Our work included a 90-foot-tall temporary shoring structure and engineering removable column jacking procedures for seamless integration into the Pavilion’s distinctive form.

Here’s How

The Art of Temporary Shoring

The Pavilion’s design required innovative solutions to stabilize dramatic structural features during construction. At its rounded north end, floor plates cantilever up to 50 feet beyond the last line of columns, supported by two 10-foot-deep trusses. To ensure stability during truss erection, our team designed a 90-foot-tall temporary shoring system.

The shoring was crafted as two-column braced frames with tiebacks to the building structure, minimizing the footprint to navigate the site’s tight constraints. The truss jacking frame we developed allowed for precise adjustments, enabling the removal of shims and the shoring system after the trusses were fully bolted and welded.

The Magic of Removable Columns

Two temporary columns between levels nine and ten posed another engineering challenge. These columns needed to provide interim support during erection of the floors above until the roof trusses were installed to achieve the final load path of the floors above level nine being hung from above.

We designed a unique column splice detail and jacking procedure, accounting for structural deflections at various construction stages. Hydraulic jacks were used to unload and remove shims once the roof trusses were completed, transitioning the structure to its permanent state. The final column splice connection was engineered to handle both the temporary and permanent conditions, seamlessly integrating into the Pavilion's design.

Results

Thornton Tomasetti’s innovative construction engineering brought the Pavilion’s ambitious design to life. The hospital’s sculptural form now stands as a landmark on Penn Medicine’s campus, blending cutting-edge functionality with an inviting, patient-focused atmosphere. Behind the scenes, our solutions made this architectural and engineering masterpiece possible, ensuring stability, precision, and elegance at every stage of construction.