With 114 rooms, the new University Children’s Hospital Zurich is the largest healthcare facility for children and adolescents in Switzerland. Located in a residential neighborhood, the roughly CHF761 million (US$887 million) project comprises two buildings: an acute care hospital and a research and teaching facility.
The acute care hospital functions like a town, with the medical specialties as neighborhoods. On each of the hospital’s three floors, a central main street runs past the green courtyard, providing orientation and allowing sunlight into the building.
The patient rooms are located on the hospital’s top floor. Each room has been designed like a wooden cottage with its own roof—providing both privacy and a view of the outdoors. The staggered rooms have rooftops at varying inclines, emphasizing the singular identity of each patient. The rooms also offer enough space for parents to spend the night with their children.
The hospital’s abundant daylight, outdoor views, and biophilic design aim to contribute to healing, according to a statement from the design architect, Herzog & de Meuron.
The white, cylindrical teaching and research building features an open, five-story atrium in the center. The research fields are arranged around this central core to encourage collaboration and communication. The building has one 320-seat lecture hall and two 100-seat seminar rooms, as well as study areas. With movable walls, the lecture/seminar rooms, lobby, and café can be reconfigured to form one large event space that can accommodate 670 people. On the floors above, research laboratories and accompanying offices have unobstructed views of the surrounding landscape.
Boulders unearthed during construction have been placed in and around the buildings. The project team also planted over 250 trees.
On the building team:
Design architect: Herzog & de Meuron
Architect of record: ARGE KISPI (Herzog & de Meuron and Gruner)
Electrical engineer: Amstein + Walthert
Plumbing engineer: Ingenieurbüro Riesen
Structural engineer: ZPF Ingenieure
Building automation and smart building: Jobst Willers Engineering
Construction manager: Gruner
Related Stories
| Oct 30, 2013
11 hot BIM/VDC topics for 2013
If you like to geek out on building information modeling and virtual design and construction, you should enjoy this overview of the top BIM/VDC topics.
| Oct 28, 2013
Urban growth doesn’t have to destroy nature—it can work with it
Our collective desire to live in cities has never been stronger. According to the World Health Organization, 60% of the world’s population will live in a city by 2030. As urban populations swell, what people demand from their cities is evolving.
| Oct 18, 2013
Meet the winners of BD+C's $5,000 Vision U40 Competition
Fifteen teams competed last week in the first annual Vision U40 Competition at BD+C's Under 40 Leadership Summit in San Francisco. Here are the five winning teams, including the $3,000 grand prize honorees.
| Oct 18, 2013
Researchers discover tension-fusing properties of metal
When a group of MIT researchers recently discovered that stress can cause metal alloy to fuse rather than break apart, they assumed it must be a mistake. It wasn't. The surprising finding could lead to self-healing materials that repair early damage before it has a chance to spread.
| Oct 14, 2013
The next level of Lean process for healthcare
Most hospitals have begun the Lean process improvement stage to eliminate waste, reduce travel distances, and minimize inventory, with varying levels of success. Here are three keys to creating a prosperous Lean program.
| Sep 24, 2013
8 grand green roofs (and walls)
A dramatic interior green wall at Drexel University and a massive, 4.4-acre vegetated roof at the Kauffman Performing Arts Center in Kansas City are among the projects honored in the 2013 Green Roof and Wall Awards of Excellence.
Sponsored | | Sep 23, 2013
Nichiha USA panels provide cost savings for community project
When tasked with the design and development of a newly constructed Gateway Rehabilitation Center, architects at Rothschild Doyno Collaborative first designed the new center to include metal panels. When the numbers came back, they were challenged with finding a product that would help cut costs and keep them within the construction budget. Nichiha’s fiber cement panels come in a half or less of the metal panel cost.
Sponsored | | Sep 23, 2013
HKS leverages Revu and Bluebeam Studio for IPD on the Banner Health MD Anderson Health Center project
Read how HKS is working collaboratively with all project partners and streamlining information flow using Bluebeam Revu and Bluebeam Studio to digitize communication and deliver the facility using IPD.
| Sep 19, 2013
What we can learn from the world’s greenest buildings
Renowned green building author, Jerry Yudelson, offers five valuable lessons for designers, contractors, and building owners, based on a study of 55 high-performance projects from around the world.
| Sep 19, 2013
6 emerging energy-management glazing technologies
Phase-change materials, electrochromic glass, and building-integrated PVs are among the breakthrough glazing technologies that are taking energy performance to a new level.
