The new hospital is adding 521,000 square feet and hundreds of new jobs. The additional 149 beds will bring the hospital's total to 361, according to administrators.

The hospital has become world-renowned for its innovative surgeries, which have included delicate separations of conjoined twins, heart surgeries and organ transplants. Now the older hospital, which will be designated the "West" building, will be joined by enclosed bridges on each floor to the new building, to be known as the "Main" hospital, which is costing more than $1.1 billion to construct and will more than double the current hospital's 323,000 square feet.

Packard is still present: On an illuminated etched-glass memorial wall, images of her as a young woman and a more senior visionary philanthropist welcome visitors. The hospital she and her husband, David Packard, helped create through a $40 million donation in 1986 has grown to handle 13,472 admissions, including 3,519 inpatient surgeries and 4,417 outpatient surgeries in fiscal year 2016, said Samantha Dorman, the hospital's director of media and public relations.

Shimmering green glass leaves embedded in the floor will guide visitors along a redwood-forest-themed first floor, where kids will find a sculpture of a large mama black bear, her arms spread wide to invite children to sit on her lap.

Lucile Salter Packard is said to have always believed in the power of nature to heal. The late Silicon Valley philanthropist and namesake of Stanford's Lucile Packard Children's Hospital would likely delight in the new hospital scheduled to open in December, which is filled with wildlife art, more than 3.5 acres of gardens and green spaces, California ecosystem-themed floors and many sustainable and cutting-edge technological features.

The ICU wing of the new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital will feature private rooms for each patient with a pullout sofa bed for two family members to sleep. Photo by Veronica Weber.

The new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital will feature 149 beds, six surgical suites, four diagnostic units and three imaging units for MRI and PET scans, and 3.5 acres of open space. The hospital is slated to open December 2017. Photo by Veronica Weber.

The ICU wing of the new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital will feature private rooms for each patient with a pullout sofa bed for two family members to sleep. Photo by Veronica Weber

One of the many play areas in the Dunlevie Garden at the new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital includes a tree structure to climb, and a mountain lion's den. Photo by Veronica Weber.

A real working sundial is surrounded with animal sculptures of a ram, bear, turtle and sea lion; one of the many play spaces for children and their families to spend time outdoors in the Dunlevie Garden at the new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Photo by Veronica Weber.

The Dunlevie Garden at the new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital features a large, kid-friendly space with plenty of room for play, with many animal-themed sculptures that children will be able to play on including this one shaped like a wolf's head. Photo by Veronica Weber.

The seating area in the cafeteria of the new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital is decorated with historical photographs from Stanford University, including this panel displaying photos of Lucile Packard herself. Photo by Veronica Weber.

A mosaic of foliage and butterflies, one of the many brightly colored mosaics created by artist Gary Drostle, which make up the design of the new Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Photo by Veronica Weber.

A sculpture of a family of raccoons made by artist Pokey Park, is one of many animal themed sculptures and art installations placed in the new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Photo by Veronica Weber.

The light-filled entryway and reception area of the new main building at the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital; a major expansion of the current hospital which will add 149 new beds and six new surgical suites. Photo by Veronica Weber.

A construction worker in the new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital works on the first floor of the hospital which will feature six new state of the art surgical suites, which will add onto a total of 13 (seven surgery suites are at the current hospital). Photo by Veronica Weber.

The main elevator in the new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital features repurposed redwood originally part of the Hangar One airfield at Moffett Field. Photo by Veronica Weber.

An art installation features a flock of flying birds above the lobby and reception area of the new expansion of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. Photo by Veronica Weber.

Construction workers work on the foyer leading to the entrance of the new wing of the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital. The new expansion will offer 420 parking spots with 22 spots for electric vehicles. Photo by Veronica Weber.

In addition, Packard administrators believe the establishment of an inpatient facility would be too complex for any one facility. They favor a collaborative approach with El Camino Hospital and Kaiser Permanente hospitals, Dorman said.

But Packard will not have any dedicated beds for inpatient psychiatric services, a significant need in the Bay Area, according to health care professionals and parents of teens in need of inpatient care. The reasons are many, starting with the high demand for medical and surgery beds at Packard, Dorman said in an email.

The new Packard will house a cancer center, acute-care and intensive-care units and a surgical treatment center, said Christine Wipert, hospital communications manager. Six new surgical suites will bring the total to 13, making Packard the largest in terms of children's hospital operating rooms in northern California, according to administrators.

The original Packard Hospital, which was completed in 1991, is compliant with current state seismic standards, but administrators planned in 2007 to increase the number of patients the hospital can serve and improve care by upgrading its facilities. Many of the older hospital's rooms are double occupancy, which can become crowded with equipment; the new hospital's single-patient rooms will help prevent the spread of diseases, decrease medical errors and result in less stress for patients, hospital administrators have said.

The new Packard Hospital is part of the multibillion-dollar Stanford University Medical Center Renewal Project, which includes a new 824,000-square-foot adult-patient hospital, Stanford Health Care, which is slated to open in 2018, and overhauls of the Stanford University School of Medicine and Hoover Medical Campus. Stanford is under a state-mandated deadline to comply with seismic-safety standards adopted under Senate Bill 1953 after the devastating 2004 Northridge earthquake.

The new hospital, which broke ground in 2012 , will include innovative technologies to help with surgeries and diagnostics. Two of the operating rooms will have on-site, advanced MRI imaging machines.

With six months left until the scheduled opening, a large semi-circular park with amphitheater seating near the building entrance has yet to be completed. On a recent morning, fresh paint on the acute-care and intensive-care floors mingled with plastic drop cloths, craft paper that protected the intricate floor tilework, and holes awaiting ceiling ducts and electrical outlets to be installed.

In December, the hospital began providing adolescent psychiatrists to staff eight out of 17 inpatient beds at the adolescent inpatient psychiatric unit at Mills-Peninsula Hospital in San Mateo. Patients arriving at Stanford Emergency Department who require psychiatric hospitalization have priority for placement in those beds, Dorman said.

CORRECTION: a previous version of this story stated that the OUVA program will measure how a patient is moving or track improved agility and range of motion. There is discussion about having physical therapy incorporated with the interactive wall, but there are no plans at this time to digitally track movement and send the information back to their doctors and therapists.

The more than 40 million year old limestone comes from the Saint Maximin Quarry about 30 miles north of Paris, which was bought by Leland Stanford, according to a hospital spokesperson. Approximately 546,000 pounds of the sedimentary rock was used in the construction of the new children's hospital and traveled nearly 5,600 miles by boat and truck to arrive at its new home.

The new Lucile Packard Children's Hospital's exterior may look familiar to Stanford University visitors. That's because the Lutetian limestone used is also on 12 buildings on the Stanford campus, including the Science and Engineering Quad and Lokey Stem Cell Building.

There's one special feature that Wipert said is already causing a gustatory buzz: "The employees are excited by the pizza oven," she said.

That most common of family-gathering activities — meal time — will be aided by the hospital's Harvest Cafe. The well-lit cafeteria with sunshine yellow and leaf-green tile accents will serve sustainable organic food at different stations, from international to salads, a bakery and "grab and go."

The interactive programming, created by the company OUVA, can be used as physical, occupational and emotional therapy as well: Patients could, for example, perform tasks like catching a ball. Wipert said there is discussion about having physical therapy incorporated with the interactive wall.

In a broadcast studio, kids will be able to create, record and edit their own videos, which can be broadcast in patients' rooms through the hospital's entertainment system. But perhaps the most fun and socially interactive feature will be a floor-to-ceiling, roughly 12-foot-wide digital interactive wall in the recreation room. Amid digitally created northern California cliffs or deep sea environments, children will be able to see themselves moving around the scene, frolicking on cliff tops, splashing in waves or writing their names in the sand.

Three separate areas — child, toddler and teen — offer play spaces. Parents and staff also have separate outside decks on each floor where they can take respite, Wipert said. A spiritual sanctuary will offer a meditation garden where visitors can also go to find solace, she said.

The uncomfortable visitors' recliner chair found in most hospitals is replaced by a loveseat that converts into a bed for two, Wipert said. And each room will also have its own safe for storing valuables.

A parent and guest nook next to the window creates a semi-private space. Parents will have their own television and internet access so they can work, browse the Web, read emails or even sleep. Nearly all new rooms will have ports for laptops, gaming drives, iPads and televisions.

And for children who can't escape to the outdoors, the garden will be viewable from hospital rooms. Each room also has a planter box outside the window to encourage healing, Wipert said.

At a "three cubs" photo station, children will be able to get their picture taken between two small bears. There's a whimsical giant yellow banana slug and sculptures of desert dinosaurs.

The outside is just as interactive: Dunlevie Garden, located between the existing and new hospitals, is a space for exploration. Children will be able to climb on the giant wolf head or check out a gopher's habitat by crawling through its "burrow." Kids can hide in a puma's-den sculpture and scramble in a redwood tree house.

Sculptures on each floor help patients and families find their way around unfamiliar spaces: The second floor, in orange, has tiger salamander and kit fox motifs; the third floor focuses on desert themes with California valley quail, bighorn sheep and saguaro cactus.

Rather than moving through sterile hallways, families and patients can interact with murals depicting the lives of local threatened and endangered species and the habitats in which they live: the salt marsh harvest mouse, burrowing owl, California red-legged frog and others.

The main elevator is designed as a gigantic redwood tree trunk; its exterior is made from reclaimed redwood salvaged from Moffett Field hangar in Mountain View. There are other details on the first floor: porcelain-tile mosaics in the floor mimic waves; an aquamarine ocean-wave motif in glass wraps around the reception desk. There are also cast-bronze sculptures of sea animals by artists James Bottoms and Pokey Park; aluminum seabirds by David Landis flutter overhead.

With the idea of creating habitats for healing, the hospital design team has given each of the hospital's six stories and two levels of underground parking a different California ecosystem theme: Deep Ocean; Shallow Water; Rocky Shore; Redwood Forest; Valley; Desert; Foothills and Mountain.

The hospital may boast many advanced technologies and improvements, but it is nature that patients and families will likely notice first.

Hospital administrators also tout the new building's environmentally sustainable design, which orients the structure toward the sun's movement to allow maximum natural light to enter through skylights. A wind turbine and a water-collection system also make the building environmentally friendly. The collected water will completely irrigate the landscape without the need for additional water from the Hetch Hetchy water system, saving 800,000 gallons annually, hospital administrators said.

"The use of the hybrid rooms significantly reduces the anesthesia risk, the length of stay and overall cost compared to the multiple-stage procedures completed in the past," Dorman said.

In the neuro-hybrid suite, the surgical team removing a cancerous tumor "will be able to view rapidly updated images during delicate surgeries and re-image a patient immediately after a procedure to ensure that the operation was successful," Dorman said.

New Lucile Packard Children's Hospital is a habitat for healing

Facility will use immersive technology, nature to help patients get well