Arras Hospital in France by Groupe-6

The Arras Hospital, a hospital in a park with modular building and dynamic facade was designed by Groupe-6 is a precursor of a new generation of hospitals promising high architectural, spatial and social values, combining modernity and humanity. The Arras Hospital is inserted in a dense urban environment, the architecture design is strategically located at the outskirts of the historic city in a landscaped park, it boards and faces the old fortifications allowing the patients spectacular views of the historic town. The Arras Hospital project represents a wonderful opportunity to reverse the situation.

The primary preoccupation was indeed to optimise the relationship between the staff and the patient, serving and enhancing notions of caring, efficiency, welcoming and dialogue. A new bedroom organisation with bathrooms on the external facade creates more space, more efficiency and time spent with the patients. Logistics are maximised through NTIC, introducing the concept and reality of a networked hospital.

Transparent bridges connect the three main buildings(one building for lodging, a technical centre and an administrative centre) ventilated with punctual green patios and water pools. Lightness, openness and transparency are accentuated by a flat roof floating over the architectural mass. Public and mixed-use spaces are generously distributed, filled with natural light, allowing interaction and dialogue, and reinforcing the definition of the hospital as a living space. Lodging will be the symbol: a large glass blade set forward and placed in the park. The building’s spatial design combines the requirements of a hotel with the flexibility of constant change. Each floor is a great modular plateau incorporating strategic and structural elements, such as care centres and logistic clusters. The plateaus will be ventilated by three large patios, which thrust the park inside the hospital itself.

The Arras Hospital pays particular attention to environmental quality through a system of natural renewable energy – the double skin façade creates a ventilating buffer space between the interior and the exterior. Closed in winter, opened in summer, the louvers allow natural heating and aeration according to the seasons. The light façade will blend with the environment by both reflecting the trees and through its function. It will be comprised of adjustable glass vanes cladding the building and creating a ventilated buffer zone between the inside and the outside. These vanes will close in winter and conduct the natural heat of the sun. In summer the vanes will be open to ventilate the inner façades and prevent excess heating.

by: nikiomahe.com