A hospital is a universe in itself. Adults, senior citizens and children, outpatients and inpatients, doctors, nurses and visitors populate the halls and rooms. Some of them come just for a short visit. Others stay a while longer. And some even come every day because it’s their place of work.
Different needs
A hospital or a clinic must meet a number of different needs. Patients should feel that they are in good hands, while the staff should be able to work as efficiently as possible. This places great demands on those who plan and build these complex buildings. The design must optimally support all processes and structures. To ensure this the planners must first study the processes before they can begin drawing the ground plan. The aim is to create a complete and functional “organism”.
It took roughly a year of intensive planning work to plan the renovation of and annex to the Landesklinikum Weinviertel Mistelbach-Gänserndorf. The objective of the concept is not to increase size but rather to optimise functionality, paths and areas to create a hospital where everything is located within a short distance of each other. By 2017 the hospital is expected to have 550 beds, and create 200 new jobs. The State of Lower Austria is investing a total of 186 million euros in the project.
Special challenges of the project
The fact that the historic core of the regional clinic is to be restored and that the hospital needs to stay open during the entire construction period means the planners must face a number of additional challenges. Even so, planning work was successfully completed at the end of 2010, and the groundbreaking ceremony for the project was held on 27 June 2011. A consortium consisting of the companies ALPINE and VAMED, the Lower Austrian commercial property lender NÖ Hypo-Leasinggesellschaft and the architects Moser and Maurer are responsible for the project.
Among other things, the plans include moving the main entrance, building a new surgical and intensive care centre, a family centre with a paediatric, gynaecological and obstetrics unit, an outpatients’ clinic for child and adolescent psychiatry, remodelling the outpatient and the first aid area, separating emergency and scheduled patients, designing a new, attractive outdoor area, and adding a parking level with 250 parking spaces. Other goals are to fundamentally improve the overall functionality in the hospital and incorporate clear structures to ensure good orientation for patients and visitors.
When the work is finished, people in the region will have an innovative, state-of-the-art hospital to serve their medical needs.
Photo gallery – the new “Weinviertel” State Clinical Center in Mistelbach-Gänserndorf:
