The jury found the "Ginsburg Architects" project the most accurate answer to the technical task of the competition, which, at the suggestion of the Ministry of Health, reflected the tasks that had never been set before a typical design.
First of all, the contestants had to solve the technological scheme of the hospital in a fundamentally different way than the type of monoblock structure common in previous decades. The modern CRH is essentially a hospital town, which includes an expanded complex of medical institutions - a polyclinic, a hospital, an infectious diseases department, an ambulance station. It is still a single building, but it is a system of polyblocks of limited number of storeys. This reading of the function reflected modern requirements associated with both the more complicated medical and engineering equipment of hospitals and the accelerated development of the technologies themselves, so that treatment and diagnostic units should be able not only to expand, but also to require a new organization of engineering support. The general humanistic orientation of the patient-oriented space has also become important.
In the concept of "Ginsburg Architects", the polystructure is deployed on the site into an orthogonal composition of five main blocks - three medical, administrative and diagnostic building and a pediatric and adult polyclinic. They develop on both sides of the inner gallery-link with a common vestibule for all - it acts as a "core" organizing the volumes on the site. The entrance to the lobby is located from the end - from the polyclinics side - and is close to the entrance areas to the territory, excluding the intersection of flows of patients and employees of different departments. The first floor of the gallery is intended mainly for communication between the departments of the hospital, here there are nodes of vertical communications - staircase and elevator halls of the ward buildings, the second - for moving visitors of the hospital, administration and students.
The compact and at the same time flexible structure of the blocks meets two of the most important needs of the modern CRH - in organizing simple and convenient connections between departments and in clear functional zoning, tied to the peculiarities of treatment processes and, accordingly, to the saturation of individual blocks with special equipment. At the same time, the flexibility of the proposed structure allows you to change the specialization of hospitals in response to the specific needs of the district and organize them based not on the specific functions of individual departments, but on the needs of a single medical process, where all parts of the complex are involved at once.
So, the administrative and diagnostic building is stretched along the gallery with a plate, which creates a convenient connection between the admission, diagnostic and ward departments located in it. The operating, surgical, maternity and cardiology departments are located side by side in such a way that, if necessary, it was possible to use the capacity of intensive care units for patients of any of these departments. The functional diagnostics department and laboratories are close to the block of polyclinics and are connected by a passage on the second floor level, which can also be used by hospitals.
The ward buildings are located on the opposite side from the entrances to the reception area and form semi-closed courtyards - the windows of the chambers themselves look out here. Thus, they will face the park area and are separated from all noise sources, the loading area and the pathological building by an extended building with a reception area. To accommodate relatives of patients, as well as students, a boarding house with its own entrance is planned on the ground floor.
The arrangement of blocks along the uniting axis of the gallery allows you to freely change their number, size and purpose of the bodies. In addition, the structure can be arranged in the best possible way and "sit down" on sites of rather complex configuration in conditions of dense urban development. The presence of a central gallery for any of the options will provide convenient technological connections between departments.
As noted, the fundamental transformation of modern hospitals is driven, in addition to technological demands, by a general trend towards a more humanistic reading of function. A special role is given to the ergonomics and comfort of the space, its adaptability for patients and staff, and the reduction of inevitable stress tension by design techniques. The very reduction of the number of storeys in hospital buildings to a human-scale level, level with or below the crown of trees, is an important step towards a new look.
The fusion of architecture and landscape, an extensive greening program of the territory - also serve to a positive image of hospitals. In the concept of "Ginsburg Architects", it is represented by the arrangement of a park zone from the side of the ward buildings, ensuring the privacy of patients, landscaping of inner semi-enclosed courtyards with lawns, green curtains for separate infectious and pathological departments. It is also proposed to plant greenery on flat roofs of buildings - given the low-rise buildings and the predominant development of horizontally, there are a lot of such spaces and they are clearly visible from the windows of chambers and offices.
The approach to the design of public spaces in hospitals - lobbies and halls - is also being thoroughly revised. The gallery connected to the lobby realizes in this sense the typology of the inner street. Typical city services appear here - cafe zones, bank branches, communication salons, shops, the presence of which helps both patients and staff to avoid the feeling of isolation behind the inevitable hospital fence.
In the solution of facades, the principle of humane scale is combined with the industrial method of construction. The facade mesh itself is universal - the project provides for ventilation facades with an outer layer of plate material. Planning solutions imply the maximum possible unification of spans of structures, standard sizes of windows, stained-glass windows and facade elements. The rhythm and accents can be varied, observing the tiered articulations, the organization of the entrance groups from the ground level. The volume of the gallery, which forms the space of the courtyards, is made in contrast with the main facades, which is lighter and more transparent.
The Ginsburg Architects concept fully reflects the transformations that Russian hospitals are undergoing following the revolution in medical function design that took place abroad several decades earlier. Generally, hospitals are getting smaller, but they themselves are increasing significantly in size, since large investments in medical technical equipment naturally lead to the centralization of procedures and to the integration of functions, including research and development. CRH unites many subdivisions in complex polystructures, for which the flexibility and clarity of internal connections, reliable and continuous functioning of many processes becomes especially important. At the same time, the function receives a fundamentally new shell: technological quality is inseparable from the quality of the physical environment, the impact of which on the well-being of patients and staff is difficult to overestimate.
