Description

Few diseases have a more ominous aura than cancer. Treatment often requires arduous chemotherapies, aggressive radiological interventions and complex surgery. It has increasingly become the domain of multidisciplinary teams that involve oncologists working together with specialists from different fields. Only large oncological departments can offer these services; often these departments have become specialized hospitals in their own right. However, smaller cancer centers have evolved in recent years as well, providing a less stressful environment for patients. The Healthcare Center for Cancer Patients is a fine example of this trend. Unlike the well-known Maggie’s Centres, which are entirely dedicated to support and inform patients, this center provides its patients with a range of therapies focused on patients’ well-being, in support of the medical interventions administered in large-scale facilities.

Situated in a semi-residential area close to the university hospital, the center is immediately recognizable, even though its footprint does not go significantly beyond the scale of the building blocks adjacent to it. Clad in aluminum, the contrast with the dark red brick that dominates the neighborhood could hardly have been more conspicuous.

The architects decided to break up the volume, creating a mishmash of seemingly small houses with steep roofs lining an interior patio that nevertheless are part of one volume. Suggesting a diamond-shaped parceling structure, the rooflines of the allegedly individual houses are set at an angle of about 45 degrees to the alignment of the block. If the outer façade corresponds with the building line, this results in rooflines diagonally breaking away from it; if not, a dented perimeter is the outcome, producing the prismatic effect that characterizes the building’s exterior.

Whereas the external envelope with its pointed roofs and sharp turns appears to fend off inimical influences from outside, suggesting that the Center protects its patients, its inner world offers them comfort and support. Within the rectangular block, three long-stretched zones define the building’s overall structure. Leaving the central part of the middle zone open, the architects created a patio that acts as the heart of the building. Here, the façades are clad in wood, and the pavement is a simple brick in a warm color. Dotted with wooden street furniture, the atmosphere is domestic. With only three floors, the Center is modest in scale. It offers its users spaces for social support and enlightenment on the ground floor and rooms for athletic therapies on the floor above. The spaces on the third floor derive their character from the steep, pyramidal roofs. The Healthcare Center evolved from what the architects have labeled ‘process design’, an approach that required multidisciplinary work at the office and included both the users and experts from cancer rehabilitation.

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