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Competition Project - First Prize

The plan for the new Tel-Giborim Hospital for 720 beds, now under construction, was developed on the basis of the competition project. The main consideration was to assure the closest possible connections between the various departments related to each other, and to achieve a straight and efficient communication network - both vertical and horizontal - between them, at the same time providing for the possibility of independent future growth and development. The hospital units and departments radiate from the central communications core - the medical facilities horizontally and the wards vertically. The main orientations of the major hospital elevations were south and north. For their protection from sun and rain, horizontal strips of concrete cantilevers were proposed on the south elevation, with vertical prefabricated concrete panels inserted on the west and east facades. The basic climatic problems were solved by the buildings themselves - their volumes interspersed with open courtyards and patios, forming a breathing grid throughout the complex. The buildings' architectural character was thus determined by this mosaic of closed and open spaces, organically expanded on a modular grid, by the climatic treatment of the building elevations, and by the carefully considered space relationship between building volumes and open garden and patio spaces. The main design consideration was to assure that any future growth of the different hospital departments would take place organically, allowing the net-work of traffic and installation to be easily expanded. A modular grid system was applied throughout the whole building complex with a grid scale of 7.20 by 7.20 metres, suitable for wards and operating theatres, and allowing a subdivision into 3.60, 2.40 and 1.20 m, suitable for laboratories, X-ray and other services. This grid pattern has been imposed over the complete site, including both the built-up areas and open gardens.

The patients' wards are located in a multi-storey block with two nursing units per floor of 34 beds each. A plan of a double corridor was used, with three-bed wards on the north and single rooms on the south - the services, kitchen, treatment and nurses' station in the central zone. The medical facilities and services are located on three successive lower floors. Several hospital units, such as maternity, pediatrics, psychiatry and future pavilions for chronic diseases, which need separation and privacy, are placed in separate pavilions to the south behind the central block.