Project Name: KIPCER
Authors: Mindspace
CITATION
The design for healthcare projects is often viewed from the lens of hyper-efficiency. It is a complex typology which demands a significant overlay of services, circulation patterns and requirements that cater to super-special functions. This medical facility ventures beyond the functional obligations of the programme in an attempt to re-align the essential quality of a place for healing and care.
Patronage for institutional spaces of this nature is rare as the premium placed on the value of land is often quite high resulting in climate-controlled boxes that operate as machines for healthcare. In such context, this project exhibits a great generosity in material and spirit. It employs porosity and openness allowing light, air, and landscape to punctuate the built form. Through choice of materials, the architects have ensured that the built environment will age gracefully and over time, the landscape will take over the voids creating a tropical retreat.
The interior spaces overlook the green, the circulation and connecting fabric is interspersed with opportunities of pause and the plan opens up possibilities in human encounters. The design accounts for spaces of gathering and solitude much demanded not only for the wellbeing of the patients but also for the medical staff, caregivers and support staff who will live the built environment for an elongated time. The built environment can be imagined to mitigate the stressful nature of the job of a medical professional and a patient’s recuperation.
Healthcare facilities, often viewed as efficient spaces for corrective procedures, largely lack the vital environment for renewal and reconciliation. An architecture of generosity in healthcare needs both – the right patronage and a thoughtful spatial articulation – to triumph not only from the perspective of wellbeing, but also from the vantage point of mental health of the many doctors, nurses and personnel that work in these facilities and therefore, KIPCER by Mindspace is a Citation Project for The Merit List.
Images & Drawings: courtesy Mindspace; © Shamanth Patil