As we announced last week, BIG+WHR+Arup has been selected as one of three design teams to participate in the second phase of the design competition for Nyt Hospital Nordsjælland, a 124,000 square meter acute hospital in Hillerød, north of Copenhagen. BIG’s proposal for the new hospital, serving over 300,000 people, seeks to "preserve the site’s existing natural features while optimizing the efficient hospital machine."
Read on for more from the architect's description...
The new hospital, merging three hospitals into one, will be built on a former hunting area characterized by rolling hills, many small ponds and one of the largest forests in the country. BIG’s proposal consists of eight interlocking playfully composed rings, which encourage maximum interface between the wards and creating spacious courtyards that give the hospital a sense of community. The flat green roof responds to the natural topography, and the rings vary in height to create access to green surfaces. As a result, each patient room has a relationship either to an internal landscaped courtyard or to the surrounding woodland and greenery.
Bjarke Ingels stated: “Studies show that daylight and views to green areas and plants has a healing effect on bed lying patients. One of our guiding principles has been to further build on the area's historic landscape features and to create a smooth transition between inside and outside. The façade is designed with integrated planters to bring nature right to the patient’s bedroom window. The landscape is in this way always present.”
Instead of creating linear circulation corridors, the hospital is built up around a central node which allows access to all the departments. To optimize the flows, the ground floor is kept free from bed transportation making the foyer a welcoming public space.
“BIG’s ideas, together with the large green spaces and green surfaces, mean that we really can talk about a healing hospital in the best possible interpretation of the concept”, the jury commented last Friday.
Architects
Creative Director
Bjarke IngelsPartners-in-Charge
Andreas Klok PedersenProject Leader
Hanna JohanssonBIG Team
Lucian Racovitan, Taylor McNally-Anderson, Mathias Bank, Zoltan David KalasziWHR Architects Team
Anthony Haas, Stephanie Schwindel, Akshay SangolliARUP Team
Sandra Akmansoy, Francesco Petrella, Ambrogio Angotzi, Tiago Oliviera, Mark Chown, Rudi ScheuermannHospital Consultant
ArchiMEDCost Consultant
Davis LangdonLandscape Architect
Man Made LandProject Year
2013Photographs
Courtesy of BIGArchitects
