The psychiatric Inpatient Care Center at Zucker Hillside Hospital, a place for self-improvement and psychological restoration, is a story of optimism and of architecture’s fundamental ability to deliver comfort and nurture.
Tomas Rossant, Design Partner
Inspired by earliest responses to housing the mentally ill, the new building’s form is firmly rooted in humanitarian principles, reinforcing a respect for the individual, encouraging community and endeavoring to create a soothing place of beauty. The Inpatient Building reinforces a comfortable healing environment through its residential scale and outdoor activity spaces.
On a highly visible site, the new addition to the North Shore University Hospital complex presents a new public face.
Organized around a central courtyard with landscaped therapy gardens and an entrance lobby, the building serves adolescent, adult and geriatric patients in clearly defined wings within the complex. The building’s central core houses consultant offices and support spaces, which connect to a staff corridor that permits the constant flow of staff throughout the building.
The building is conceived as a series of concentric and nesting bars of discrete color and material qualities. The red and gray outer shell houses the individual patient bedrooms. The middle white bar contains the patients’ communal spaces and represents the power of the institution as a healing authority.
The interior bar has a taut and crystalline façade that allows a visual connection to the idyllic landscape beyond through a “green screen” – a planted solar shade armature.
