Zurich Children’s Hospital, Acute-care hospital
Zurich, Switzerland
Competition 1st prize 2011-2012
Project 2014-
Commencement 12/2018
Completion of building shell 12/2020
Opening 2.11.2024
Children's
Hospital.
Overview
Client
Zurich Children’s Hospital – Eleonorenstiftung, Zurich, Switzerland
Architecture
ARGE KISPI
Herzog & de Meuron / Gruner AG
Team ZPF
Konstantinos Adamakos, Taylan Beyaşahin, Giancarlo Casutt, Enrico Cristini, Damian Dängeli, Heike Egli-Erhart, Meran Hassan, Flavia Hofmeier, Johanna Hohenwarter, Yannik Jaggi, Antje Käser-Wassmer, Luis Looser, Franck Mahler, Dimitrios Mamadas, Jonathan Mazzotta, Kata Aletta Orbán, Carlos Pacheco, Jacqueline Pauli, Fabio Pesavento, Roberto Plaza, Susanna Quaresma, Patrick Raulf, Nico Ros, Christian Rudin, Dario Ruff, Remo Thalmann, Kay Unterer, Sander van Baalen, Robert Vögtlin, André Weis, Ann-Christin Westkamp
The new building for Zurich Children’s Hospital in Lengg, Zurich, encompasses two parcels with the new acute-care hospital located on the southern plot, while the teaching and research building is on the northern plot. With a floor area of 79,215 sqm, the hospital covers the full spectrum of specialist fields in child and adolescent medicine, as well as in paediatric surgery.
The new building is horizontally layered, whereby each floor is shaped by its respective functions: examination and treatment, emergency and intensive care on the ground floor; flexible offices surrounding a central examination and treatment area on the 1st floor; patient rooms on the 2nd floor; a car park, delivery zone and building services equipment underground.
The acute-care hospital’s load-bearing structure consists of a concrete skeleton with flat slabs, resting on columns and load-bearing walls in the core areas (stairwells, lift shafts etc.). This allows maximum flexibility for the desired complex range of uses, and simultaneously ensures that the hospital will maintain optimal framework conditions for the best possible modern medical care in the future.
The roof structure represents a continuation of this flexibility. Alongside the helipad and superstructures for the building services equipment, there is plenty of open space, which is extensively greened. In the event of a conversion, the greenery can be removed and the area can be temporarily used for containers or short-term installations on the roof. The support structure’s grid is interrupted at several points by rooms and interior courtyards that require larger span widths. Steel-concrete composite beams and pre-stressed ceiling areas make these gaps in the support structure’s grid possible.
The foundation slab is installed in the suitably load-bearing ground as a shallow foundation with local recesses. On the layers with lower load-bearing capacity, the building rests on molasse with the aid of bored piles, which also serve as local buoyancy protection.
Between the two plots, a delivery and disposal tunnel beneath Lenggstrasse connects the buildings. Built using in-situ concrete, this structure with a shallow foundation is monolithically connected to the buildings at both ends, so as to eliminate differential subsidence in the transition zones.