T-HOSPITAL

Assignment: New hospital building
Architect: Chief architect Mikael Paatela
Client: Hospital District of Varsinais-Suomi
Volume: ca. 126,800 cu.m.
Year: Completed in 2003

Turku University Central Hospital is one of Finland’s five university hospitals. It serves the population of the southwestern part of the country as the region’s foremost medical facility with all medical specialities.

As the existing hospital site is fully built up, the new T-Hospital building was constructed on a new site connected to the existing hospital by a passageway over a highway. The new hospital building houses the departments of oncology, dermatology, and allergy and also the surgical OPD, and it is designed in accordance with the latest hospital design principles. It consists of separate building blocks for wards, outpatient services, and high-quality patient examination and treatment units. The blocks are built around a central glass-covered atrium, which serves as a restaurant, living room and garden for staff and patients as well as visitors. The blocks are easy to enlarge in size and height since the technical plant rooms are located in technical towers at the side of each building block. This also enables easy renovation of any storey in the future, and without disturbing the medical work in the other storeys.