Designing a hospital building is one of the most complex architectural tasks. It is a building where function, medical protocols, and numerous installations take precedence. Due to the specificity of the task and the desire to create the project at the highest level, we, as architects, decided to develop the concept collaboratively with the users. We engaged in discussions about the project task and various options with the management, department heads, doctors, and nurses through numerous meetings. For example, the protocol for staff and patient movement before and after surgery, the spaces they traverse, is a particularly intricate task that we harmonized multiple times. This is just one of the details. As function is predominant, we created a flexible floor plan with simple construction, designed to accommodate different changes sought by users, primarily the medical staff, according to their needs.
The location is on the eastern side of KBC Osijek, making the building a focal point in the area and the main entrance/exit to the hospital complex. Special attention was given to separating the communication routes for staff and patients. Each has their entrances, corridors, staircases, and elevators. Thus, the space is organized as follows: waiting area zone, patient communication zone, in the middle of the building, the outpatient/consultation zone, staff communication zone, and staff room zone. All of this was designed long before the time of COVID-19 when the importance of a building system with such communications, or in architectural jargon, a building with clean/dirty corridors, became particularly evident.
We also empathized with the patients, who come to such a building seeking help, and the space must be straightforward, readable, logical, easily memorable, but also not visually sterile to avoid further depression. For this reason, each floor has a different pleasant color to help patients navigate the space, remember where they have been, and feel a touch of optimism. The architectural gesture of external design in the form of vertical aluminum louvers serves a dual function, providing sun protection and serving as decorative elements.