Akershus

Location: Oslo, Norway
Architect: CF Møller
Mechanical Engineer: Multiconsult AS and SWECO AS
Opening Date: 2008
Beds: 570
Estimated EUI:60 KBtu/SF•year

Akershus was completed in the Fall of 2008 and is a more recent example of the contemporary horizontal pavilion style hospital. It was designed by CF Møller and displays their Danish design roots in its clean, straight lines in comparison to the more organic nature of Rikshospitalet. This hospital demonstrates that this form with horizontal adjacency between treatment block and patient wings is still relevant for the Norwegian hospital system.

The hospital form is similar to Rikshospitalet, but the systems approach is even more contemporary in this example. 40% of the heating and cooling for the hospital is renewable energy using a combination of ground source heat pumping and seasonal energy storage.

The state-of-the art systems include a closed loop ground source heat pump with 350, 200 Meter bore holes. The project also re-captures waste heat from systems equipment, medical equipment, lighting, people, and other internal heat generators. In this sense, this project has solved the thermodynamic equation, thus saving a substantial amount of energy.

Patient corridors are organized in clusters where each group has seven patient rooms, with three single and two double rooms. Each cluster has a workstation for staff that has borrowed light, captured from above the bathrooms in the patient rooms. Between the clusters in the corridor is a lounge space for patients, family, and staff with an accessible outdoor deck.

St. Olav’s

Location: Trondheim, Norway
Architect: MedPlan AS and Narud Stokke Wiig
Mechanical Engineer: COWI
Opening Date: Phase I, 2004-6; Phase II, 2009-15
Beds: 802
Estimated EUI: 100-117 KBtu/SF•year (2007)

St. Olav’s Hospital in Trondheim Norway is an example of a contemporary hospital using the unbundled approach, keeping “community placemaking” in mind. Here, the horizontal concept is pushed even further than the horizontally opposed hospitals, with buildings spread apart (unbundled) into separate distinct centers of care. These centers of care act as individual hospitals, while maintaining connectivity between the campus at the second level via sky bridges and underground through service functions. Each of the buildings preserves its own unique architectural character allowing the buildings to be recognized and distinguished from one another while softening the potential overwhelming institutional rhythm that might otherwise be created in such a large facility

The Women and Children’s Centre here is a great example of providing outdoor space and views within an urban setting. Every opportunity is taken to create spaces to be outside, throughout the hospital. It is a thin plan building that wraps around a large central courtyard. Patient rooms open directly onto decks or terraces. Generous windows daylight the patient rooms and provide light in the surgery suites. Daylight is controlled on all of the façades with automated exterior louver blinds that are automated with the movement of the sun. Micro-adjustments allow for personal control.

Rikshospitalet

Location: Oslo, Norway
Architect: MedPlan AS
Mechanical Engineer: COWI
Opening Date: 2001
Beds: 585
Estimated EUI: 117 KBtu/SF•year (2007)

Rikshospitalet showcases the shift in typology from a predominantly vertical distribution to a horizontal distribution. This contemporary pavilion hospital draws its inspiration from Victorian hospital models, adapted to today’s contemporary practice. This is the large National University research hospital that serves specialized patients from all over Norway. The philosophy that permeates the design is an environment that is for people. Its functional areas are organized as if the building is a town unto itself.

The patient wings and diagnostic and treatment areas in this hospital are horizontally opposed, and circulation between the two occurs on sky bridges that span the interior street. This shift in form creates the opportunity for plan-enclosed courtyards in the diagnostic and treatment area of the hospital, allowing daylight and views into spaces such as surgery and imaging.

This form incites a challenge in the floor-to-floor height variation between the treatment building and patient wings. In this example, the treatment floors are layered with interstitial floors so that they match up with the patient wing floors. In this case, the challenge becomes a benefit for the hospital. These interstitial floors allow for easy maintenance of systems, fast re-construction, and limit the disruption that occurs on the clinical floors.

Patient rooms use displacement ventilation rather than a traditional overhead mixing system to deliver fresh air to the room and the Interior Street is naturally ventilated.