Following a competition win in late 2007 against seven competitors from the UK, Germany, Holland, Italy, the Ukraine and the US, bdpgroupe6, an architectural practice with offices in London, Paris and Dublin that undertakes international healthcare commissions, has been appointed to design a 250-bed children’s hospital on a 10 hectare suite near Kiev in the Ukraine.
Due to open in 2009, the All Ukrainian Health Protection Centre for Mothers and Children (also to be known as The Children’s Hospital of the Future) will be a multi-purpose child treatment and prevention institution with “highly specialised and technologically advanced departments”. Designed as a “highly sustainable” building, and located in forest close to Kiev’s outskirts, the facility will see treatment and diagnostic areas separated from ward areas, with the part of the hospital housing areas such as intensive care, theatres, laboratories and the pharmacy topped by a “green” roof so it merges with the forest floor.
Bdpgroupe6, acting as architect and structural and environment engineer, says the ward blocks are inspired by the Ukrainian tradition of the “dacha in the woods”, “reinterpreted within a modernist aesthetic”.
The Ukraine 3000 International Charitable Foundation says the economic, social, environmental and other difficulties faced by Ukraine in recent years have badly affected the health of the country’s youngsters. Child mortality has risen in the past two years, with an “unacceptably high level of oncohematological and oncological diseases”.
Neil Cadenhead, director of bdpgroupe6, added: “The client’s intention is that the construction of this healthcare institution to a European standard will focus human and material resources, implement highly efficient technology and ensure a high level of treatment and diagnostics. The new hospital will combine general paediatrics and surgery, oncology, oncohematology, and a peritoneal centre. It is also planned to set up a research and training centre for paediatric doctors which will help integrate Ukraine into the world medical community.”
