The new Cadix Ziekenhuis in Antwerp will be opening its doors shortly. Architects Robbrecht & Daem have developed a hospital building that is strictly functional and takes account of its urban surroundings. The new Cadix Ziekenhuis in Antwerp is a mammoth project. When the clinic complex, which is up to 20 storeys high, […]
The new Cadix Ziekenhuis in Antwerp will be opening its doors shortly. The architectural firm Robbrecht & Daem has developed a clinic building that is strictly functional and takes account of its urban surroundings.
The new Cadix Ziekenhuis in Antwerp is a mammoth project. When the up to 20-storey high hospital complex opens in 2022 after eleven years of construction, it will provide 361 new patient beds on the Scheldt. It will then replace two existing Ziekenhuis Netwerk Antwerpen ZNA hospitals. The new hospital was built on a relatively small site for a facility of this size. This is because the new hospital was not built on the outskirts of the city, but is located on the edge of Antwerp’s city center. It is part of an urban renewal process that has been underway in the north of Antwerp over the last two decades. In recent years, the eponymous Cadix district and the adjacent docks have mutated from a traditional port area into a trendy quarter. In addition, the neighboring railroad depot of the Belgian state railroad SNCB was transformed into a 20-hectare landscape park between 2005 and 2009. This new “Park Spoor Noord” borders directly on the new clinic complex.
The design for the new Cadix Ziekenhuis was provided by the internationally renowned architects Robbrecht & Daem from Ghent. They realized the large-scale project together with the hospital specialists from VK Architects & Engineers. The Cadix clinic will form a new maximum care center in Antwerp in the future. According to the operator ZNA, it will be a benchmark for modern medical services. Due to the limited space available, the architects have organized the building complex vertically. They divided the enormous building volume into an eight-storey base structure and two slimmer superstructures, which rise four and twelve storeys above the base respectively.
As the Cadix Ziekenhuis is located as a hinge between different parts of the city, the new building was also to be closely interlinked with the surrounding neighborhoods in terms of urban development. The first floor of the hospital takes on a central function. The operators describe it as a mixture of a shopping street and a health boulevard. Pedestrians and cyclists should be able to move freely here. The first floor is home to publicly accessible stores and restaurants. Outpatient healthcare services, examination centers and medical-technical services are also located there.
A multi-storey atrium forms the focal point of the lower floors of the Cadix Ziekenhuis. An enormous spiral staircase, which fills almost half of the hall, serves as both an eye-catcher and an access route. Visitors can also use it to access the third floor, which is also open to the public. Visitors will find panoramic lounges and viewing terraces that offer a wonderful view over the city and the harbor. Robbrecht & Daem relocated motorized traffic, including the emergency services, to the basement so that numerous public zones could be set up on the ground floor. Among other things, there are now almost 1,000 parking spaces there.
The floors above the third floor house the inpatient care facilities, including the various examination areas, operating theaters and laboratories. Finally, the hospital’s administration is located at the very top of the last tower floors. The architects have created space for spacious outdoor areas and several inner courtyards, not least thanks to the compact building masses. This has enabled them to let plenty of light into the interior spaces despite the compact volume.
In future, the Cadix Ziekenhuis will be part of a high-rise cluster that is currently under construction. It will stand out not least because of its unusual color scheme. Robbrecht & Daem have clad the building with light green ceramic panels. On the one hand, this evokes a direct association with the hospital function. On the other hand, it embeds the large building in the surrounding landscape and takes away some of its massiveness.
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