09 Apr 2014 - NEW NORTH ZEALAND HOSPITAL

Herzog & de Meuron Win International Design Competition in Hillerød, Denmark
HILLERØD, DENMARK, 9 April 2014 – The New North Zealand Hospital has appointed Herzog & de Meuron to design their new building, located North of Copenhagen, close to the town of Hillerød. It is scheduled to open in 2020. Working in collaboration with the Danish firm of Vilhelm Lauritzen Arkitekter, the team was selected ahead of six other architecture firms. The new hospital, with a total area of 124,000 square meters, 24 medical departments and over 660 beds, will become the heart of a new urban district. Conceived of as a horizontal building organically reaching out into the open landscape, the organization of the winning design promotes the crossing of conventional operational borders.

“The hospital organically reaches out into the wide landscape. Simultaneously its soft, flowing form binds the many components of the hospital. It is a low building that fosters exchange between staff and patients, and it has a human scale despite its very large size.”

“The decision process here was exemplary of best practice. It was in the hands of a professionally organized and demanding committee with representatives from all departments of the future operation. After an extensive exchange with the three finalists, the committee chose a project and its planning team after having meticulously tested its flexibility and work method."

“We are very happy to have been awarded the New North Zealand Hospital in Hillerød. Together with the hospital’s representatives, a project was developed demonstrating that architectural ambition and functionality can come together in a hospital. The choice of the jury is a seminal sign to architects and the entire health-care sector: low, flat hospital buildings can be better integrated in the city or the countryside than the high-rises structures that were often realized in the last decades.”