The project redefines the notion of the healthcare institution by challenging the architecture’s ability to adapt to today’s interest and culture in the healthcare industry. Thus, the notion of a hospital has evolved from being a “place of exile” for the sick, to being a state-of-the-art healing facility. In order to facilitate those trends, our design focuses in providing a welcoming and comforting healthcare facilities while maintaining hygiene, and realizing the hospital’s vision in the “Celebration of Life” as a translation of today’s demand.

The Monumental Void and Materiality

The hospital’s assortment of programs are all condensed into a 1,600 square meter base area with a seven-floor high above ground rectangular prism mass. Atypical to a normal hospital, this project is composed of a couple of commercial programs which are integral to our design concept. As visitors enter the main lobby, they are greeted with a grand imperial staircase that directs them into a mezzanine platform hosting a restaurant program. The restaurant is enveloped in a 24×24 m triple-height volume and an 8×8 m quadruple-height volume which turned into a grand monumental space, cascaded with natural and artificial lights. Cladded with double-skin fabric system and wrapped in indirect artificial lights, the vertical volume creates a muting spatial tunnel that puts natural ray lights and hanging art installations to shine. The dramatic spatial quality embraces the “Celebration of Life” concept where arrivals of newborns are celebrated and honored.

The project carves out 5 additional pockets of negative space that act as relief voids on the inpatient treatment areas at 5^th and 6^th floors. The negative spaces serve as semi-open healing gardens which function as positive distractions and breathing spaces for inpatients and families. By using pre-engineered natural look materials, such as homogenous tiles or wood veneers, we intended to override the infamous notion of an all-white hospital finishes, which often gives an impression of cold and intimidating, to warm and welcoming. The selection of materials is also perpetuated by blurring the indoor-outdoor environment concept. We installed outdoor sidewalk paving to the indoor environment at the lobby to create a seamlessly welcoming transition for the public. The concept is carried out all the way to the rooftop where transit passages are made semi-open with an outdoor dry garden image.

The Façade Design

Our hospital’s façade is designed to help accentuate the building’s grid framework division. The complexity of the façade’s design is furthered through two efforts; by creating two variations of glass tinted windows in correspondence to the programs’ privacy and by manipulating the frames’ orientation to highlight the big voids. The all-glass windows façade is chosen to maximize transparency from the outside to inside in purpose to create a friendly and inviting building. All spatial qualities utilized in this project are all conscientiously done to defy the pre-existing notion that healthcare institution, which is often perceived as cold and intimidating, to become warm and welcoming.