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Weaving a 'ribbon of care' through a tight urban setting
Gracefully fitted into a dense urban university campus containing academic, research and healthcare components, the 12-storey 41,880 m² Advanced Treatment and Development Center will provide a new home for Seoul National University Hospital’s most distinguished clinical programs, focused on cardiovascular and neurovascular disease, diabetes, advanced surgery and high-technology medical imaging. The facility includes three levels of underground parking, with surgery suites and inpatient floors above, including VIP patient rooms.
A principal design challenge for the project was the narrow site, currently a surface parking lot surrounded by retaining walls amid various mixed-use urban buildings. The scheme takes advantage of the slope to provide discrete entrances for the different program requirements, with a VIP entrance at the higher end of the site, and an on-grade lobby at the lower, street end of the building to provide access to outpatient and diagnostic services.
This competition-winning design scheme employs a 'ribbon of care' motif: the massing is two parallel linear bars containing patient rooms, connected by an articulated curvilinear circulation route, or 'ribbon', which visually and physically unites patients with caregivers. This glazed ribbon unfurling along the roof makes a symbolic gesture of connection to the existing Seoul National University Hospital. Programmatic elements project from the facades, breaking down their scale.
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