City of Health

The intention of the project is to recreate a new environmental context on which to grow a new part of the city, reclaiming the former industrial area Falk, and thus creating a consistent island of greenery divided into a range of episodes under the functional profile and of fruition, as well as aesthetic.

Within this vast area, a series of functions are organized, identifying the area to be allocated to the new hospital and research center, which therefore fits within a context where some services with which it can be integrated gravitate (for example, library, gym, kindergarten, shopping centers, etc.). A “white factory”, thus devoid of any possible congestion and disturbance deriving from road infrastructures and parking lots, reduced to the bare minimum and almost exclusively located in the basement floors; an “open” structure, even visually, which lets itself be seen through the transparencies of the large glass surfaces and at the same time intends to place the external landscape in the foreground for those who use the interior spaces. It is a structure that on linear planes develops linearly through blocks organized along the axis of the Main Street, which becomes the ordering principle of the settlement.

In particular, the entrance lobby, the bow windows of the wards and the façade cladding present architectural solutions that define the character of the project. As for the open spaces, the square in front of the lobby is conceived as an open, collective public space, which is part of the park and the rail landing system as well as, of course, access to the City of Health and Research, also capable of having a centrality connotation. Precisely for this reason the square has assumed a clear and geometrically perceptible shape, which assumes the breadth of the Lobby as a reference element on one side, and the exit direction from the bridge station on the other. The transition from the Lobby allows access to the most welcoming and monumental space of the hospital on the axis, thus being able to appreciate the organization of the central space and the direct view of the patio. The design of the gardens is highly structured and highly varied, with a marked theming of each garden in function of a dialogue with the medical disciplines housed in the individual clinics. In each courtyard there is a single but very large tree, which is possible in the open ground. The tree is compared to the strongly characterized prospectus of the wards and in particular with the bow windows. Parallel to the course of the Main Street, third-dimensional trees are planned. To the south of the park, beyond the double stream, the choice of maintaining large lawns marked by rows of trees guarantees a wide usability of the park at that point, in a quiet place, next to the hospital, divided into large rooms meadows for use of leisure and rest in the green.