Description

The new extension of the Medisch Spectrum Twente replaces two existing facilities. Situated next to each other and connected by an 800 m long pedestrian bridge, the facilities were housed in two old hospital locations. Combined, they hosted sufficient medical specialties and treated large enough numbers of patients to qualify as a teaching hospital, in cooperation with the University Medical Center of Groningen. The MST is connected in a network with the hospital locations in Oldenzaal, Haaksbergen and Losser. The new building acts as the network’s central hub. The adjacent, defunct hospital was upgraded and now functions as a service building.

Harry Abels (IAA Architecten) designed a remarkably transparent and unobtrusive building that is located in the city center – a consequence of the decision to stay at the historical site and in line with the ambition to minimize the gap between the medical world and the city. It allowed Abels to use this project to contribute to an urban repair process (‘Stadtreparatur’, to use the more common German expression): the building helps to heal the urban tissue where the demolition of textile factories left so many scars. The city council supported the decision to stay in the center by making a nearby parking garage accessible from the new building via a tunnel.

The fourth floor acts as the hospital’s functional core. It contains the operating theater with ten general operating rooms, three operating rooms dedicated to heart surgery as well as two hybrid ones. Intensive Care Unit, cardio care and heart catheterization are also located here. The floors below contain the public spaces and the medical facilities that attract the largest number of patients and visitors. Patient wards occupy the upper floors. This zoning scheme resembles the three-flow model discussed in chapter ‘Zoning and Traffic System’, albeit that these flows have now been organized vertically. The architect combined this strategy with the theme model: clusters like mother-and-child or oncology concentrate most medical functions needed to provide proper cure and care. This results in a horizontal zoning in patient groups that completes the vertical subdivision in the wards, the hot floor and the public areas.

The main entrance sits in the outer corner of the L-shaped building, where the wall lining the Koningstraat moves slightly forward as if to welcome visitors, a gesture underlined by the rounded corners and the abundant use of glass. The entrance leads to an interior square from where two spacious corridors provide access to the spaces in the two wings. Here public functions like the reception area and a restaurant can be found.

The entrance square is one of the five atria that flood the building with daylight. Each atrium is the heart of one of the themed clusters. The atria offer views from the patient rooms on the upper floors to the artwork that is suspended from the glazed roofs. The main traffic arteries to the themed clusters are located on the first floor. Daylight and artworks as positive stimuli refer to some of the principles of evidence-based design, but more important is the use of only single patient rooms. Providing privacy to the patients has been a major ambition in the design of the Medisch Spectrum Twente.

The clear distinction in functional zones and the themed clusters facilitate wayfinding. Art helps patients and visitors to stay aware of where exactly they are. A dynamic, continuously changing digital photo on a big screen, located in the passageway to the parking garage and designed by Geert Mul, is one of the building’s highlights; Merijn Bolink, Maria Roosen, Karin van Dam, Hans van Bentem and Ram Katzir created the artwork in the atria.

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Originally published in: Cor Wagenaar, Noor Mens, Guru Manja, Colette Niemeijer, Tom Guthknecht, Hospitals: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2018.