LIVORNO HOSPITAL

  • Type Hospital
  • Location Livorno, Italy
  • Date 2017
  • Client Usl Toscana Nord Ovest
  • Size 63500 m2 (new building)
    8500 m2 (renovation)
  • Status
    International Competition
  • Team
    PAT.
    BuonomoVeglia
    CZStudio
    Experientia
    IPE progetti
    BST ingegneria
    Arup

The design for the new Livorno hospital — with a new capacity of 488 beds — involves the renovation of part of the existing health facilities and the reuse of the adjoining former Pirelli areas, as well as the creation of a park and a new road system to reconnect the project with the city.  

This Nuovo Presidio Ospedaliero di Livorno is intended to be the most citizen-friendly hospital of its generation, in its conception principles, which are first and foremost experiential, and in its settlement principles, which realise a new welding of the hospital organism with the urban fabric, reactivating an entire part of the city on several levels. The new construction breaks down the functional volume of the new building into blocks allowing the surrounding greenery to find a place inside them, and connects with the former Pirelli buildings which become part of the system, acting as a mediator between the hospital and the city. The greenery contributes to such mediation by connecting building and park, and extending the park into the new area, south of the existing building. 

The architectural strategy stems from assuming the patient journey as a design tool: the narration of an experience generates the shape of spaces. Combining the modularity of the functional scheme with the deconstruction of the main volume increases the openness and transparency of the common spaces, serves to ensure improved ease of orientation, and actually contributes to the therapeutic aspects that characterise the experience inside the hospital. Every space in the complex has a direct relationship with the surrounding greenery.

In fact, the spatial articulation of the room – the fundamental unit of the entire healthcare organism – is the place where the project expresses a new vision of the healthcare experience, structured by a biophilic approach to design, breaking up the classic “rectangle of inequalities of the standard room by breaking up and rotating longitudinal walls to give an equal opportunity for each user to be guaranteed their own independence as well as a possibility to choose which personal interactions to entertain, and to be in contact with natural light, the life of the park and the life of the city.

User experience is the pillar on which the entire project structure is developed, starting from the principle that the quality of spaces plays a fundamental role in the positive outcome of the treatment experience.   

It is not just a hospital, but a centre for a holistic vision of well-being, with activities bringing body and mind together, a place for everyone, surrounded by greenery and art, with a gym and nursery, newsagent’s and library, gardens, greenhouses, restaurants, bars. 

The Evidence Based Design approach has structured the entire concept development. All spaces are generated according to a biophilic design approach, in consideration of how the coexistence of the life of nature and the life of the user produces a mutually beneficial relationship, a central element to a healing process. The project implements international protocols such as Well 4 for the well-being of the individual inside the building.