Description

The renovated patient rooms in the east wing of Zollikerberg Hospital show that necessary upgrading measures can be successfully incorporated into existing buildings. The new fixtures accommodate all the necessary functions and storage areas in the patient rooms and their distinctive colours contrast refreshingly with the white hospital interiors. Through their integrative design and reductive formal language, they allow the character of the existing rooms to prevail, and free up more space for unimpeded movement in the room and around the bed.

The renovation of the east wing of Zollikerberg Hospital in Zollikon near Zurich, built in 1933, enabled the hospital to provide single rooms for patients of all health insurance classes. Thanks to the good quality of the existing building, only specific, moderate interventions were needed to fulfil modern, efficient operational standards. The façade of the building remained unchanged.

Each of the new rooms features a custom-fabricated full-height cupboard that acts as a partition to the bathroom. Through a serially producible modular design, clever detailing and intelligent variation and optimisation, the joiner was able to cost-effectively manufacture the fitted elements for 90 rooms while responding to irregularities in the existing building, fitting them exactly to each room. Unsurprisingly, this entailed careful coordination between the architect and joiner and the joiner and the specialist planner.

The new red, orange or pale green insertions – each ward has a signature colour – incorporate the technical installations and risers and serves as a two-sided cupboard and storage unit for the room and the bathroom. Their matt varnished surfaces and planar fronts also make them easy to wipe clean. Clearly visible niches hold disinfectant dispensers within easy reach for patients and staff.

Despite their small size, the single rooms are pleasant, bright and airy. The slightly rotated position of the bed faces the window offering a direct view of the quiet open parkland outside. In addition to single rooms, each floor has several larger two-bed rooms, some of which can be used as mother and child rooms.

The new insertions serve and incorporate multiple functions while simultaneously affording ample space for wheelchair users and freedom of movement for staff despite the tight room proportions. Their reductive design creates an orderly impression while retaining the character of the existing building, both in the patient rooms and the ward corridors.

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Originally published in: Wolfgang Sunder, Julia Moellmann, Oliver Zeise, Lukas Adrian Jurk, The Patient Room, Birkhäuser, 2020.