Hospital: The Latest Architecture and News

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Throughout human history, the movement of populations–in search of food, shelter, or better economic opportunities–has been the norm rather than the exception. Today, however, the world is witnessing unprecedented levels of displacement. The United Nations reports that 68.5 million people are currently displaced from their homes; this includes nearly 25.4 million refugees, over half of whom are under the age of eighteen. With conflicts raging on in countries like Syria and Myanmar, and climate change set to lead to increased sea levels and crop failures, the crisis is increasingly being recognised as one of the foundational challenges of the twenty-first century.

While emergency housing has dominated the discourse surrounding displacement in the architecture industry, it is critical for architects and planners to study and respond to the socio-cultural ramifications of population movements. How do we build cities that are adaptive to the holistic needs of fluid populations? How do we ensure that our communities absorb refugees and migrants into their local social fabric?

This World Refugee Day, let’s take a look at 5 shining examples of social infrastructure from around the world–schools, hospitals, and community spaces–that are specifically directed at serving displaced populations.

The first unit from Carlo Ratti’s CURA project was built at a temporary hospital in Turin, north of Italy, one of the world’s hardest-hit regions by the pandemic. Launched four weeks ago, the initiative to convert shipping containers into plug-in Intensive-Care Pods for COVID-19 patients was assembled at record speed.

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Hassell has approached health and wellness differently in the newest healthcare facility in Western Australia. With innovation at the core of the architectural concept, the Murdoch Knowledge Health Precinct puts people first, creating a state-of-the-art intervention, a hub for activities and interconnected public spaces.

As hospitals around the world are reaching their capacity, the architecture and design community is developing new alternatives to fight COVID-19. In order to build 60 Emergency Quarantine Facilities (EQF), WTA was inspired by their pavilion developed last year, part of the Anthology Festival. A viable quarantine structure, the Boysen Pavilion “embodied speed, scalability and simplicity in its structure”.

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Addressing contextual severe healthcare problems, like the outbreak of infectious diseases or maternal mortality, MASS has helped in setting design strategies to mitigate and reduce critical medical concerns. With some projects operational, and others in the pipeline, the facilities imagined, tackle a wide range of complications.

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As New York is facing unprecedented circumstances and as the numbers of infected people with the coronavirus are reaching new highs, officials are seeking fast and efficient solutions to generate useful spaces for patients. With a timeline of a few weeks, the city is looking into ways of altering the existing structures.

Just 2 months ago, the city of Wuhan, China announced the construction of Wuhan Huoshenshan Hospital, adding 1,000 beds, 30 ICUs, and new isolation wards to the city's medical arsenal to combat the Coronavirus epidemic. The building was completed in under 10 days by a team of 7,000 construction workers, a far cry from the reality many countries are facing as they scramble to quell the outbreak and wrestle with the shortcomings of their own healthcare systems. With over 14,000 dead and more than 300,000 infected worldwide, not to mention a shortage of medical supplies and facilities, health systems across the globe are feeling the strain of preparing for a crisis.

Opposite Office has proposed to transform the new Berlin airport, under construction since 2006, into a “Superhospital” for coronavirus patients. In an attempt to prepare the healthcare system and increase its capabilities, Opposite Office presented an adaptive reuse alternative, drawing contextual solutions to fight the pandemic.

Focusing on competition entries, this week’s curated selection of the best-unbuilt architecture from our readers' submissions, highlights projects from across the globe, presented part of international contests. Some are winners, some are not but all of the featured schemes have an intriguing conceptual approach, and a different story to tell.

Tackling diverse programming, the entries include an urban public housing proposal in South Korea, the Dianju Village Library in China and a new Future-Oriented Neighborhood in Finland combining urban and sustainable living. Moreover, the article showcases rare and unconventional functions like a hospital for psychiatry & neurological diseases in Turkey and an intervention on a famed Oscar Niemeyer site.

CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati with Italo Rota in collaboration with an international team of experts developed CURA (Connected Units for Respiratory Ailments), plug-in Intensive-Care Pods for the COVID-19 pandemic. An open-source design for emergency hospitals, the project’s first unit is currently under construction in Milan, Italy.

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Architecture and interior design constantly evolve to meet the needs of society and part of its social role is to assist the well-being of those who transit and use their spaces daily. Hospital architecture is a niche responsible for the development of projects focused on the health area, based on specifications, requirements, and regulations that guarantee and ensure the comfort of patients - it is continuously studying intrinsic issues of how a sick body behaves in space, in order to create environments that assist in the rehabilitation process.

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This article was originally published on Common Edge.

Ambulatory surgical procedures are routine in the U.S., but that’s not the case for most of the world. According to Dr. Michael Marin, head of surgery at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, 5 billion people have no access to safe and affordable surgery procedures, a reality that in 2010 led to nearly 17 million deaths across the globe. In search of a new model for surgical facilities that could serve local communities—a model that would be independent and self-sustaining, outside of the context of large urban hospital complexes—Dr. Marin reached out to Kliment Halsband Architects in New York, a firm that had no experience in healthcare design. Recently I talked to firm principal Frances Halsband about how the project came about, and what she and her team learned in the process.

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Designed by Skidmore, Owings & Merrill LLP (SOM) with local architecture partner May Architecture, the new Winship at Midtown facility for cancer care is an addition to the Emory University Hospital Midtown (EUHM) campus and the existing Winship Cancer Institute.

Foster + Partners has created in partnership with Luye Medical and Cleveland Clinic, a healthcare facility, challenging the traditional hospital prototypes. The design of the general medical hospital in Shanghai’s New Hong Qiao International Medical Center aims to generate a new type of patient experience.

Herzog & de Meuron have released images of their proposed University Hospital Basel, Perimeter B in Switzerland. The 68-meter-tall building, with a footprint of over 5000 square meters, exhibits the firm's familiar clean, crisp aesthetic while paying respect to the surrounding historic context. Designed in collaboration with Rapp Architekten, the 12-story scheme will facilitate the hospital’s outpatient and nephrology centers.

Renzo Piano Building Workshop has released an update of their Emergency Children’s Surgery Center in Uganda, as work progresses on the pediatric surgery hospital. Since its inception in 2013, the scheme has sought to merge the practical requirements of the healthcare industry with a “model piece of architecture that is rational, tangible, modern, beautiful, and firmly linked to tradition.”