ZPF Ingenieure

The Herzog & de Meuron / Rapp Architekten AG planning collective, with ZPF Ingenieure AG planning the load-bearing structure, won the study contract for University Hospital Basel's new Perimeter B building. The jury unanimously decided in favour of this project, also praising the efficiency of the proposed structural measures.

Via the study contract, University Hospital Basel had sought a concept for a new building, so as to develop further in a future-oriented way, and to secure its central position in the regional and trans-regional healthcare network on the long term. Here, the Health Campus master plan provides the hospital's planning basis for development of the site as a whole.

The new Perimeter B building on Schanzenstrasse/Klingelbergstrasse must meet the highest standards with regard to complex functional specifications. It accommodates the outpatient tumour centre, laboratories and outpatient nephrology, which constitute its definitive uses. It also provides areas that are to be used as temporary facilities until the K2 building is completed, after which, these can also be allocated definitive uses.

This necessary flexibility was translated into a composition consisting of three structures: a horizontal three-to-four-storey base structure and two objects floating above it – a twelve-storey cube and a single-storey, kidney-shaped pavilion. This division of the large volume into several structures makes it possible for the definitive uses and temporary facilities to coexist without disruption, while also allowing precise spatial and atmospheric references to the urban surroundings, as well as to the hospital garden.

The load-bearing structure is divided into a four-storey base structure and a high-rise, which towers above the base with thirteen additional storeys and a reduced footprint. The skeleton structures are essentially made of reinforced concrete. The floor slabs are implemented as economically optimised slim flat slabs, so the horizontal routing of the building services equipment's infrastructure in the suspended ceilings can remain undisrupted to the greatest possible extent. The concept for the load-bearing structure envisages minimising interventions in what is currently in place, thus guaranteeing that the city parking facility can be used at all times. Likewise, unimpaired operation of the underground supply channels has top priority.