New construction of children’s hospital at Lausanne University Hospital
The design by architects von Gerkan, Marg and Partners, with JB Ferrari, for a new children’s hospital at the Lausanne University Hospital has won first prize in an international competition. The hospital is to provide 85 beds and an accident and emergency unit for children, and is provisionally scheduled to open in 2019. The design concept includes light-flooded open areas with much greenery, which are intended to make a hospital stay as agreeable as possible for patients and their relatives. The entry will be presented to the public in Lausanne.
The future children’s hospital will be located in the centre of the University Hospital on a 180 meter long site on the corner of Rue du Bugnon and Esplanade, which is a prominent location from the urban design point of view. Esplanade is the main address of the hospital. The building has been designed with six storeys, with the main entrance from Esplanade leading in to the children’s hospital, the accident and emergency unit and the care wards. The underground station in that locality will be included in the overall concept by being built over. The part of the building to the east of the Esplanade will be lower, so that the view from the gynaecological unit would not be obstructed.
Competition 2014 – 1st prize Design: Volkwin Marg Associated Partner: Christian Hoffmann Project Management: gmp Martin Bleckmann, Stefan Walter Team members: gmp Christoph Salentin, Lukasz Rubnikowicz, Marlen Beckedahl, Flori Jackowski, Stephanie Krämer-Hilke Project Management: JB Ferrari Sébastien Zwissig Team members: JB Ferrari Steve Cherpillod, Marcella Wurmli, Annick Lavenex Gross floor area: 39,232 m² Client: Etat de Vaud, DSAS, CHUV
Detroit’s Dia Plaza competition is hardly unique in initiating a search for urbanistic solutions to a cultural cluster. Vienna, Berlin, Mesa, Fort Worth, Chicago’s Millennium Park and Paris’ Parc de la Villette are just a few examples of projects where the focus on spaces between buildings, and arriving at a connective plan to infuse new energy into the site, has been the primary goal of other projects. All of these have been faced with their own challenges: solutions for some have been relatively simple—Vienna’s Museum Quarter and Berlin’s Forum—while others such as Paris’ La Villette and Mesa’s Downtown Plaza represent a more challenging subject spatially. In the case of Detroit, the aim of the competition was clear: “The design competition centers around enhancing and enlivening the DIA’s exterior campus and aims to connect all the institutions with a beautiful series of settings that support all types of programming and public art.”
Form and Dichroic Light Scott Hall at Carnegie Mellon University Michelle LaFoe and Isaac Campbell OFFICE 52 Architecture Forward by Cesar Pelli, FAIA Introduction by Michael J. Crosbie, FAIA Leete”s Island Books, Maine USA Hard cover; 96 pages in color ISBN 9780918172709
In his introduction to Form and Dichroic LIght, Michael Crosbie never mentions the term, “wild card,” to describe Office 52’s participation in the invited competition for the Carnegie Mellon Engineering Building. The four finalists, picked from a list of 17 firms, also included three household names: ZGF, Wilson, and BCJ (Bohlin Cywinski, Jackson). So what possible chance could a firm, which had just recently opened a small office in Portland, Oregon, have against a competition lineup of this magnitude? But as OFFICE 52 Principal, Isaac Campbell explained, as a small firm, “we were quite nimble,” and the $50,000 stipend the firms all received to produce a design could allow OFFICE 52 more time to undertake the research involved than might be the case with a larger office, where a cost controller is constantly focusing on the operation.
Milton Keynes, known simply as MK, represented one of the more significant results of the UK’s “new town” programs from the 1950s and 60s. Situated almost equidistant between Oxford and Cambridge, and within easy access from London, the city had everything one might expect from a modern community—except a university. For a city having a population exceeding 250,000, and projected to have 500,000 inhabitants by 2050, that will all change, as a competition supported by the MK Council (MKC) and Cranfield University has resulted in five firms competing for the opportunity to design a higher educational institution to eventually accommodate 15,000 students.
If cities in the U.S. are anticipating funding from government entities to solve a dire need for affordable housing, they should be prepared for a long wait. The national government, a traditional source of funds for such projects, has shown little if no interest in the issue, and state and local sources are at a minimum. To exacerbate the problem, the construction cost of affordable housing has risen exponentially the the past few decades. Gone are those days when architects such as Oakland-based Michael Pyatok could build affordable housing for $100 a square foot.
The Rails to Trails program, which gained momentum after the1984 Federal Land Banking Law—supported by the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy—has seen over 24,000 miles of trails established where rail lines once existed. Some sites were strictly urban, while others, sometimes over 100 miles in length, were primarily rural, while others combined some of both.
The reunification of Germany in 1989 not only had a great impact on the lives of many Germans, especially those living in the former DDR,but together with the decision to move the nation’s capital from Bonn to Berlin resulted in two major international design competitions in 1992: the first was to convert the existing Reichstag building into a home for the German parliament, the second being the Spreebogen planning competition, which included a chancellery for the head of state as well as needed buildings nearby for the Federal government.
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