The competition programme outlined a range of dilemmas involved in the project; dilemmas that reflect the contemporary values and debate in Mental Healthcare. How can the built environment support a relationship of equality and respect between the patient and caregiver? How is it possible to create a manageable environment for the personnel, while avoiding an atmosphere of surveillance? How can we extend an invitation to social interaction and community, while allowing for quiet withdrawal?
We have sought to balance these dilemmas, designing a proposal with, in the words of the competition jury, “clear focus on coherency and kindness. The concept involves scaling down the large facility to adaptable, manageable and clear building elements, which creates a variety of rewarding exterior and interior spaces.”
Wards are organised so that all patients have direct access to their ward’s own courtyard garden; an outdoor space where patients can freely reside without being overlooked from wards above, and without the need for direct supervision.
The project follows the intentions in the overall masterplan hospital, with a ribbon of green landscape running through the site and framing the ward units, which lie together in pairs like courtyard houses. The upper wards are staggered in relation to the ground floor wards, so that ground floor rooms get plenty of daylight and avoid being overlooked.
This staggering of the upper story gives a particular spatiality to the main entrance from Lille Tuborgvej:
The elevated stories out toward ’Lille Tuborgvej’ give, in connection with the landscape’s varied outdoor spaces, a fine addition to the new psychiatric hospital’s architectural identity and character. Both “Lille Turborgvej and Bispebjerg are added new qualities, that do not exist today. At the same time, the project is adapted to suit the smaller scale to the North –East”, announced the competition jury.
