In July 2023, Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron organised an exhibition of the studio’s works at the Royal Academy in London, a staggering 400 objects including drawings, models and architectural mock-ups spanning 40 years of practice. Where the first two rooms of the retrospective exhaustively detailed the processes of making for the architects and the impressions of the building on its occupants; the third was dedicated to a single project, the then soon-to-be-completed 377 Kinderspital Zürich; featuring drawings, an augmented reality set up, a model and a life-size replica of one of the patient rooms for the hospital design. The outline for the architectural exhibition made clear the fact that the project represented a culmination of the firm’s approach to innovation and keen concern towards inhabitation. The new University Children’s Hospital, run by the Eleonore Foundation and located in Zürich-Lengg at the foot of Burghölzli Hill, is now complete. The project’s site plan comprises two blocks: one dedicated to acute care and treatment for children and adolescents and one to research and teaching in the fields of oncology, cardiology, neonatology and burns, which the 1868-founded charity foundation specialises in.

The design for the acute care block, with other hospital buildings in its vicinity including the heritage-listed University Psychiatric Clinic (PUK), is a 200m long and 110m wide low-lying structure; considered to be the largest facility for children and adolescents in Switzerland. The sprawling healthcare building, characterised by wooden facades and a procession of cottage-like structures on its top floor is distinctly reminiscent of traditional settlements. In fact, the entire block is designed to “function like a town”, according to the architects. Considering varying activity, noise and privacy levels that are vital to the smooth operation of a hospital, functions have been distributed over three floors. A main street forms the spine of the healthcare architecture, facilitating easy orientation for visitors and patients, while flooding the spaces with natural light. Different specialities are clustered around courtyards and side passages that lead off the main circulation path. “Hospitals all over the world and even in Switzerland are often the ugliest places. For the past 20 years, we have zeroed in on this issue, because we are convinced that architecture can make a substantial difference,” co-founder of the firm, Jacques Herzog comments on the design, the result of their decades-long foray into humane spaces for healing.

More often than not, hospitals are designed to embody sterility, foregoing any sign of vitality within walls that contain the ailing; be that due to the rigorous manner of planning and infrastructure required or the pressing need and efficiency of construction demanded from healthcare design. However, architects have lately been exploring how establishing a connection to nature and natural landscapes within healing spaces can enhance a sense of well-being, for patients and other occupants alike; predisposition that forms the basis for the Swiss architects’ exploration of architecture and healthcare.

For instance, the firm’s design for a rehabilitation hospital in Basel (completed in 2002 with an extension designed in 2020) incorporated wards that were organised around courtyards, with skylights in patient rooms. As senior partner Christine Binswanger noted, the Basel-based hospital lent itself as a prototype of sorts for the more sizeable project in Zürich-Lengg. The courtyard design in the project not only becomes a way for the interiors to integrate nature but also helps orient visitors, creating pockets of privacy and moments of calm. As an official release emphasises, “The ‘inner nature’ of the new complex is essential to experiencing the hospital as a place that is conducive to healing.”

A large gateway invites one into the 377 Kinderspital Zürich, where a round courtyard planted with trees and dotted with playful sculptures helps soften the transition into the interiors. The facade design, concave with slender wooden slats fixed into the building’s load-bearing concrete structure, lends the architecture a humble yet solid bearing. Depending on the orientation and activity in the interiors, the facade features wood, glass or vegetation. Adjoining the entrance with gardens of their own are the restaurant, the day clinic and therapy facilities, the outwardly more public spaces on this level. The busiest spaces within the block including the ICU, operation theatres and highly frequented treatment areas such as imaging diagnostics and the surgical day clinic are included on this level as well, grouped around internal squares. The emergency block is relegated to the eastern end, with a separate entry.

Where the ground level is the liveliest, the second floor includes the hospital school, the pharmacy and other shared areas on either side of the main spine; with punctured skylights and the courtyard architecture ensuring that the spaces feel airy. Further, 600 workspaces for medical and administrative staff have been planned on this level that is oriented with views towards the outside. The quietest zone in the scheme, the top floor is reserved for overnight inpatients. Designed as individual wooden cottages, each of the 114 rooms on the top floor ensures that patients can enjoy a comfortable degree of privacy with views of the expansive landscape design, while also accommodating space for parents to be with their children.

The wooden interiors and the large windows with soft natural light streaming in ensure the spaces feel warm and inviting. Speaking about the design and incorporating small details that add to the softness of the spaces, Pierre de Meuron elaborates in the official release “The thoughtful use of wood and carefully placed art installations, provide clear and memorable orientation, plenty of daylight and a connection to nature. The spatial diversity, with views both inside and out, also offers spaces for children, teenagers and their families to stay and play, as well as restful break areas for hospital staff.”

Apart from the thoughtful arrangement of breakout spaces and fenestrations, and the varying materiality lending texture to the interior design, the architects have created almost 700 pieces of in-built furniture for the project. Not only that, this scrupulous attention to detail extends to details such as the dimensions for furniture designs adhering to kids’ dimensions, various nooks and crannies for children to play in and special coating on the walls to encourage children to scribble on them. Further, the use of lightweight materials set in the concrete frameworks and core ensures interior flexibility for the design.

Where the hospital block is designed to lift one’s spirits through a subtle play between natural elements and the lightness of the built spaces, the research and training block is designed as “an agora.” Conducive to creating an atmosphere of exchange and collaboration among researchers, the different spaces of the five-storey building are oriented around a central atrium, which also lets daylight into the interiors. Three lecture halls, the lobby and the café on the ground floor have been planned with movable walls, so they can be reconfigured into one large space with room for over 600 people when required. The building also includes open workplaces, seminar rooms, and laboratories for research and diagnosis with accompanying offices on subsequent floors.

While distinct in their design language, the concern with thoughtfully responding to the surrounding contexts expressed in spaces that have gravitas while still feeling light characterises both new blocks designed by Herzog & de Meuron for the University Children’s Hospital. The hospital, city as well as machine balances function with a keen focus on comfort by prioritising each patient as individuals. On the other hand, the simple yet effective design for the research and teaching block ensures the spaces foster a lively research environment. Completed over 10 years, with a design team and list of collaborators numbering over 100, it makes one realise that projects of this nature do take a village to accomplish, let alone well.

“Here at the Children’s Hospital, people can see for themselves how daylight coming in from outside and variations in proportion can animate and change a room, how plants and vegetation can blur the distinction between inside and outside and how materials are not just beautiful to look at but also pleasing to the touch,” Herzog concludes of one of the firm’s flagship projects. Its subtle machinations, grand in design yet seeming exceedingly simple when executed reinforce the ambition that “Architecture can contribute to healing.”

Project Details

Name: University Children’s Hospital Zurich
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
Typology: Hospital
Client: Kinderspital Zürich – Eleonorenstiftung
Partner Architects: Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger (Partner in Charge)
Design Team: Michael Schmidt (Associate, Project Director), Mark Bähr (Associate, Project Manager Acute Hospital), Birgit Föllmer (Associate, Project Manager Building for Research and Teaching), Alexander Franz (Associate, Project Manager Building for Research and Teaching), Andrea Erpenbeck (Associate, Project Architect), Martin Fröhlich (Associate, Project Director), Michael Drobnik (BIM Manager), Judith Abele, Valentin Abend, Ömer Acar, José Aguirre, Luís Alves, Jens Andresen, Gabriella Antal, Michael Bär (Associate), Laurenz Batka, Michal Baurycza, Nathalie Birkhäuser, Filip Bolt, Sandro Camichel, Guanlan Cao, Axel Chevroulet, Benedict Choquard, Otto Closs, Victoria Collar Ocampo, Hernán Concha Emmrich, Joao Da Silva Moreira, Marc Anton Dahmen, Eva Danwerth, Léane Dott, Nicholas Dunkel, Silja Ebert, Ela Elmas, Santiago Espitia Berndt (Associate), Alessandro Farina, Maik Fischer, Daniel García Moreno, Kim Gartmann, Noémie Girardet, Irene Giubbini, Borja Goñi, Arnaud Greder, Daniel Grenz, Gustava Grüntuch, Lars Hagen, Christian Hahn, Kasper Hansen, Philipp Henestrosa, Anna Hernández García, Yuko Himeno, Ryoko Ikeda, Soraya Isak, Vasileios Kalisperakis, Marina Karova, Changsup Stephan Kim, Daniel Koo, Melisa Köseli, Sahng O Lee, Stella Lembcke, Matthias Leutert, Ruizhe Liang, Gia My Long, Theo Mayer, Raúl Mera (Project Architect), Laila Miarelli, Klaus Molterer (Project Architect), Miquel Montoya Moya, Neda Mostafavi, Stefan van Nederpelt, Don Nguyen, Anja Oertel, Mònica Ors Romagosa (Project Architect), Lukas Otrzonsek, Aldis Pahl, Jakob Elias Passernig, Vesna Petrovic, Fabio Prada, Corsin Raffainer, Timon Rajmon, Francisco Ramos Ordóñez, Bálint Rigó, Giulio Rigoni, Dominic Roth, Pascal Ryser, Ladina Schmidlin, Anna Schneibel, Balázs Schrammel, Sarah Söhnel, Magdalena Stadler, Maximilian Steverding, Paula Strunden, Jan Szonert, Milou Teeling (Project Architect), Emma Thomas, Ali Uzun, Yves Wanger, Patrick Welss, Mirco Wieneke, Niklas Winkler, Yaobin Yuan, Joanna Zabinska
Collaborators:
Site Architect: Gruner AG, Switzerland, Basel
Structural Engineering: ZPF Ingenieure AG, Switzerland, Basel
Civil Engineering: EBP Schweiz AG, Switzerland, Zurich
Landscape Architect: August + Margrith Künzel Landschaftsarchitekten AG, Switzerland, Binningen
Landscape Architect (Realisation): Andreas Geser Landschaftsarchitekten
HVAC Engineering: Gruner AG, Switzerland, Basel (Gruner Gruneko)
Electrical Engineering: Amstein + Walthert AG, Switzerland, Zurich
Building Automation & Smart Building: Jobst Willers Engineering AG
Plumbing Engineering: Ingenieurbüro Riesen AG, Switzerland, Bern
Cost Consulting: Gruner AG, Switzerland, Basel
Fire Protection Consulting: Gruner AG, Switzerland, Basel
Facade Consulting: Pirmin Jung Ingenieure AG, Switzerland, Rain; Buri Mueller Partner GmbH, Switzerland, Burgdorf
Building Physics Consulting: Kopitsis Bauphysik AG, Switzerland, Wohlen
Medical Planning: Evomed AG, Switzerland, Duebendorf; Institut für Beratung im Gesundheitswesen, (IBG), Switzerland, Aarau
Laboratory Planning: Laborplaner Tonelli AG, Switzerland, Gelterkinden
Office Consulting: Kinzo Architekten GmbH, Germany, Berlin
Climate Engineering: Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH, Germany, Stuttgart
Sustainability Consulting & Environmental Engineering: Basler & Hofmann West AG, Ingenieure, Planer und Berater, Switzerland, Zollikofen; DB-B Dieter Bauer Beratungen, Switzerland, Bern
Logistics Consulting: AS Intra Move UG, Germany, Rheinfelden (Baden)
Lighting Consulting: LichtKunstLicht AG, Germany, Bonn
Signage Consultant: Integral Axel Steinberg Zuerich GmbH, Switzerland, Zurich
Audio Visual Consulting: RGBP AG, Switzerland, Thalwil
Traffic Consulting: Gruner AG, Switzerland, Basel; moveIng AG, Switzerland, Basel
Door Specialist: TeKoSi AG, Switzerland, Thayngen
Gestaltungsplan: Planwerkstadt AG, Switzerland, Zurich
Construction Geologist: Dr. Heinrich Jaeckli AG, Switzerland, Zurich
Area:
Site Area: Acute Hospital: 33,250 sqm; Building Research & Teaching: 13,400 sqm
Gross Floor Area (GFA): Acute Hospital: 79,215 sqm; Building Research & Teaching: 16,101 sqm
Year of Completion: 2024