Cremona Hospital

The design approach

Park Associati's proposal for the public competition for the construction of the new Cremona Hospital puts human well-being at its centre, promoting a vision of health that looks beyond the clinical sphere and diversifies the experience of using the facility, connecting it with the rhythms of daily life of employees, patients, suppliers, caregivers and guests.

With the aim of enhancing the overall experience for medical staff, patients and visitors, the central idea is to create environments that allow people to distance themselves as much as possible from the main reason for their hospital presence. This concept is based on the logic of ‘positive distraction’, which aims to create environments offering moments of leisure and relief.

The local context

Reading the project's territorial context − a dense network of farms in Lombardy’s agricultural landscape − guided the definition of the new hospital's volumes: two open courtyard buildings, the first facing the countryside, the second turned towards the city. The latter features a wing which, being rotated with respect to the geometry of the courtyards, generates an entrance square seamlessly connected to the main hall, designed to include the urban space within the building. The two courtyards are crossed by a system of connecting footbridges that converge at the heart of the project, the central Teca, which is the green lung of the hospital.

The green lung

The Teca is a double-height environment with green areas dedicated to all users with varying degrees of privacy, a relaxing space with indoor plants suitable for the conditions of a lived space. A system of suspended walkways forms several open-air patios similar to an archipelago of small forests, which bring natural light to the spaces and corridors of the hospital. Ground cover plants, shrubs and small trees make up a rich and complex plant structure, a miniature landscape inspired by the broad-leaf woods along the Po river.

The unique character of these communal spaces is also reflected in the transparent façades, which feature a filtering skin that follows the path of the sun. In contrast, the façades overlooking the courtyards are characterised by modular surfaces of glass and opaque terracotta, rotated differently depending on the orientation.

The Health Park

The entrance square to the hospital is the point of contact with the Health Park, a city-scale urban park, an open civic place accessible to different types of users. Conceived as a healing environment focused on the well-being of users and citizens, this system of outdoor spaces interacts with the new hospital.

Designed as an actual Arboretum, the park comprises a multitude of broad-leaved trees and conifers of species suited to climate change typical of Lombardy's historical parks. The park can be crossed following a vast analogue and digital wayfinding system, and hosts sports and wellness facilities and functions, as well as educational and recreational activities.

Human scale environments

The quality and organisation of the proposed diagnostic and treatment spaces aim to promote the well-being of patients, the effectiveness of treatments, the attractiveness for medical staff and operational efficiency. The patient rooms are designed to provide privacy and liveability during hospitalisation, and feature spaces that ensure maximum comfort, as well as attention to lighting, ventilation, temperature control, hygiene and soundproofing.

The proposed project reflects the need to consider the hospital structure as a flexible organism, capable of adapting in case of unpredictable health programmes and open to possible changes and expansions.