Assignment

What do you choose: to preserve energy or history? When you list buildings, you waste energy because they cannot be adapted to new energy standards. On the other hand, when you adapt buildings to new energy standards, you erase their history, because the material traces are transformed and their memories fade away. Will the conservation of history become unaffordable with rising energy prices?

What does listing and monumentalizing do? What kind of identity or history does it serve? What should we conserve: the architecture or its meaning? What kind of value, possibly economic, does it create for the city or for private interests? How to think across the boundary between listing and unlisting, and come up with architectural scenarios that re-engage or re-imagine our built legacy, while considering its environmental impact?

As the subject of a Master's thesis, a project for the conversion of Kantonsspital Baden was developed.

Concept

The proposal was simple: instead of demolishing the old hospital, it should be redesigned and used for other purposes. The building, which was planned as a flexible and easily convertible structure, can be adapted to today's requirements. This not only conserves resources and the climate, but also preserves a piece of regional history.

New Options for Use

The structure of the building, with a clearly separated base and a high-rise bed block, offers a variety of possible uses. By adding to the existing recesses in the base, it is divided into four parts and a lively inner courtyard is created in the middle, which provides access to the various uses. This means that part of the building can continue to be used by Kantonsspital Baden. This allows for a flexible response to a changing hospital landscape. The base would provide space for new health-related uses, such as alternative medicine, consulting and medical start-ups, which would further strengthen the concept of the health campus. The remaining areas can be used commercially - for example as offices, workshops, studios, etc. At the same time, the bed tower can be converted into attractive residential space.

Living in a Hospital

The project three different ways of living in a former hospital were tested:

On the lowest three floors you can find cluster apartments, which can be compared to a shared apartment. The residents have a large private room with a bathroom, some of which are shared. Large communal kitchens and living rooms invite people to live together.

On the middle three floors there are 2 to 3-room apartments designed for older people or temporary employees of the hospital. These apartments bring light into the corridor through the living room and kitchen. This can be opened up, allowing people to live across the corridor and making it a meeting place.

The upper four floors contain 4- to 5-room maisonette apartments that extend over two stories. This creates apartments with rooms on both sides and a core for the bathrooms.

The facade will be insulated from the inside to improve energy efficiency, resulting in a new appearance in the apartments. By recessing the insulation level, all apartments will have outdoor space behind the existing facade.

A Benefit for Everyone

The redesign will create a lively center that serves both the residents and the new hospital. Public squares and a roof terrace offer space for recreation and socializing. The building will thus become an important link between the Kantonsspital and the residential area.

Conclusion: Conserving Resources, Preserving History

The conversion of Kantonsspital Baden will not only create urgently needed living space and room for innovative ideas, but will also set an example for sustainability. Demolition would be a mistake from an ecological, economic and cultural point of view.

The project became an essential part of a regional movement to preserve the building. For this purpose, a committee was formed.