After its ten-year journey to completion, on November 2, 2024, the new University Children's Hospital in Zurich, designed by the Swiss studio of Herzog & de Meuron, will open its doors. It is the largest facility for children and adolescents and a leading centre for pediatric medicine in Switzerland.

The new facility lies in Zürich-Lengg, at the foot of a hill known as Burghölzli, adjacent to other hospital buildings. Lengg is a district with a concentration of various healthcare, research and medical engineering institutions, a popular recreational area for the population and the location of one of Zurich's two water supply stations.

The complex by the Swiss studio of Herzog & de Meuron comprises two buildings: a pediatric hospital on the south plot and a lab building on the north plot. The two-building program contains 2,300 rooms and roughly 48  functional areas alternating between three and seven above-grade stories for each respective Acute Care and Research/Teaching functions.

The acute-care hospital to the south comprises a three-story concrete frame with intricate wooden infills that blend into the landscape. The interior functions like a town: the medical specialities are neighbourhoods with squares and streets connecting them. On each of the three floors, a central main street runs past various green courtyards that provide orientation and daylight into the building. The patients’ rooms on the roof are like individual cottages.

Teaching and research are housed in a white cylindrical building to the north, with an open, five-story atrium in the centre. The fields of research are arranged around this core of exchange. Underneath, three lecture halls surrounded by seminar rooms and study areas for students are embedded in the terrain.

There are a total of 200 beds and underground parking spaces for 341 cars in the former, and the larger research building contains a total of 280 permanent or temporary workstations, a bistro, 320-seat lecture theatre, two 100-seminar rooms, and combined laboratory spaces equal to almost 8,600 square meters.

377 Kinderspital Zürich by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Maris Mezulis

377 Kinderspital Zürich by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Maris Mezulis.

A town in miniature: “The curved, three-story main facade with its endearing small-scale wooden houses and variously sloped roofs offers a friendly and warm welcome to young patients and their families. The acute care hospital is organized like a town—with courtyards, streets, alleys, and squares. These, along with the thoughtful use of wood and carefully placed art installations, provide clear and memorable orientation, plenty of daylight, and a connection to nature. The spatial diversity, with views both inside and out, also offers spaces for children, teenagers, and their families to stay and play, as well as restful break areas for hospital staff.”

Pierre de Meuron

377 Kinderspital Zürich by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Maris Mezulis

377 Kinderspital Zürich by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Maris Mezuli.

Project description by Herzog & de Meuron

The new University Children’s Hospital lies in Zürich-Lengg, at the foot of a hill known as Burghölzli. It is adjacent to other hospital buildings from several eras and is the largest facility for children and adolescents in Switzerland. It consists of two buildings: the acute-care hospital and the research and teaching facility.

The acute-care hospital to the south consists of a three-story concrete frame with intricate wooden infills that blend into the landscape. The interior functions like a town: the medical specialties are neighborhoods with squares and streets connecting them. On each of the three floors, a central main street runs past various green courtyards that provide orientation and bring daylight into the building. The patients’ rooms on the roof are like individual cottages.

Teaching and research are housed in a white cylindrical building to the north, with an open, five-story atrium in the center. The fields of research are arranged around this core of exchange. Underneath, three lecture halls surrounded by seminar rooms and study areas for students are embedded in the topography of the sloping terrain.

The landscaping includes the planting of over 250 trees. In addition, boulders found underground during construction are placed in and around the buildings, telling of glaciers from the Ice Age. The “inner nature” of the new complex is essential to experiencing the hospital as a place that is conducive to healing.

Both buildings have been awarded the platinum certification of building sustainability as specified by the strict guidelines of the SGNI (Swiss Sustainable Building Council).

377 Kinderspital Zürich by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Maris Mezulis
377 Kinderspital Zürich by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Maris Mezulis.

The Acute-Care Hospital
The new Children’s Hospital is located in a residential neighborhood dotted with fruit orchards. It is adjacent to the listed building of the University Psychiatric Clinic (PUK), known as the Burghölzli and its entrance, defined by a large open gate, stands directly opposite the entrance to the historic building of 1869. The concave gesture of the façade creates a shared forecourt for both institutions.

The gate opens onto a round courtyard planted with trees, through which the entrance is accessed. The restaurant and access to the therapy facilities below with gardens of their own adjoining the entrance. On the other side, the building’s main street leads to highly frequented types of treatment such as imaging diagnostics, and the surgical day clinic. This central axis, which widens and narrows along the courtyards, terminates at the emergency room, which can also be accessed directly from outside.

In the center of the second floor, additional services are located on both sides of the main street, such as the hospital school, the pharmacy and other shared uses. An officescape oriented towards the outside is wrapped like a wreath around this central zone and provides some 600 workspaces for medical and administrative staff.

377 Kinderspital Zürich by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Maris Mezuli.
377 Kinderspital Zürich by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Maris Mezuli.

The top floor, the quietest area in the hospital, is reserved for children and adolescents, inpatients who are staying overnight or longer. Each of the 114 rooms is designed as a wooden cottage with a roof of its own, providing privacy, a view of the green outdoors and enough room for parents to spend the night with their children. There are four centers along the main street in the immediate vicinity of the cottages, where children and adolescents can receive transdisciplinary treatment.

The façade of the hospital consists of a three-dimensional, load-bearing concrete structure. It combines the first and second floors. The depth of the façade and the infill, which may be wood, glass, fabric or vegetation, varies depending on orientation and the activity inside. Lightweight construction materials have been used consistently throughout the building except for the concrete supports and the circulation cores. In this way, departments can increase or decrease in size: the flat building with its distinctive shape thus ensures the interior flexibility that is so crucial for hospitals.

The top floor with the inpatient rooms is set back and speaks an architectural language of its own. The rooms are staggered and have rooftops with varying inclinations. The individualized, elementary shape of the cottages clearly underscores the singularity of each and every patient.

377 Kinderspital Zürich by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Maris Mezulis
377 Kinderspital Zürich by Herzog & de Meuron. Photograph by Maris Mezulis.

The Research and Teaching Facility
The rooms of the cylindrical, white building for research and teaching are organized around a central atrium, encouraging exchange and collaboration among researchers. An agora for teaching and study spreads out under this central space and responds directly to the surrounding landscape. Three lecture halls step into the natural slope of the terrain. Daylight streams in from outside, and thanks to movable walls, the lecture halls, lobby and café can be reconfigured into one large space. This creates an agora with a stage in the middle for special events and room for an audience of 670 people. A gallery overhead contains open workplaces for students. Adjoining seminar rooms on the same level complete the spaces available for university teaching.

Laboratories for research and diagnosis with accompanying offices on the five floors above have an unobstructed view of the surrounding landscape. Open workspaces are arranged around the atrium for the use of doctoral students and laboratory staff. From them, one can see several stories at once as well as the agora below, which is in turn connected to the atrium above through an oculus—a small, round hole in the ceiling.

Embedded in an expensively designed landscape, the research and teaching building is a standalone structure in the midst of a fruit orchard similar to those in many Burghölzli gardens. The building itself speaks an abstract, clearly geometric language and makes use of few materials. Cantilevered balconies with tall railings painted white give the building the appearance of being both weighty and airy at once.

The two facilities of the Children’s Hospital, though different and distinct, are clearly complementary. Situated on the hill, the circular building for research and teaching guides the gaze towards the lake. The elongated, horizontal shape of the acute-care hospital fits into the flat landscape, providing a view of the mounting rage behind it. The hospital focuses on each patient as an individual, and that means not only the healing process but the well-being of relatives and staff as well. The building for research and teaching highlights exchange and collaboration among scientists and students, which is a prerequisite of forward-looking research.

More information

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Architects
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Herzog & de Meuron. Architects.- Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger (Partner in Charge).

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Project team
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Michael Schmidt (Associate, Project Director), Mark Bähr (Associate, Project Manager Acute Hospital), Birgit Föllmer (Associate, Project Manager Building for Research and Teaching), Alexander Franz (Associate, Project Manager Building for Research and Teaching), Andrea Erpenbeck (Associate, Project Architect), Martin Fröhlich (Associate, Project Director), Michael Drobnik (BIM Manager), José Aguirre, Luís Alves, Jens Andresen, Gabriella Antal, Michael Bär (Associate), Laurenz Batka, Michal Baurycza, Nathalie Birkhäuser, Filip Bolt, Sandro Camichel, Guanlan Cao, Axel Chevroulet, Benedict Choquard, Otto Closs, Victoria Collar Ocampo, Hernán Concha Emmrich, Joao Da Silva Moreira, Marc Anton Dahmen, Eva Danwerth, Léane Dott, Nicholas Dunkel, Silja Ebert, Ela Elmas, Santiago Espitia Berndt (Associate), Alessandro Farina, Maik Fischer, Daniel García Moreno, Kim Gartmann, Noémie Girardet, Irene Giubbini, Borja Goñi, Arnaud Greder, Daniel Grenz, Gustava Grüntuch, Lars Hagen, Christian Hahn, Kasper Hansen, Philipp Henestrosa, Anna Hernández García, Yuko Himeno, Ryoko Ikeda, Soraya Isak, Vasileios Kalisperakis, Marina Karova, Changsup Stephan Kim, Daniel Koo, Melisa Köseli, Sahng O Lee, Stella Lembcke, Matthias Leutert, Ruizhe Liang, Gia My Long, Theo Mayer, Raúl Mera (Project Architect), Laila Miarelli, Klaus Molterer (Project Architect), Miquel Montoya Moya, Neda Mostafavi, Stefan van Nederpelt, Don Nguyen, Anja Oertel, Mònica Ors Romagosa (Project Architect), Lukas Otrzonsek, Aldis Pahl, Jakob Elias Passernig, Vesna Petrovic, Fabio Prada, Corsin Raffainer, Timon Rajmon, Francisco Ramos Ordóñez, Bálint Rigó, Giulio Rigoni, Dominic Roth, Pascal Ryser, Ladina Schmidlin, Anna Schneibel, Balázs Schrammel, Sarah Söhnel, Magdalena Stadler, Maximilian Steverding, Paula Strunden, Jan Szonert, Milou Teeling (Project Architect), Emma Thomas, Ali Uzun, Yves Wanger, Patrick Welss, Mirco Wieneke, Niklas Winkler, Yaobin Yuan, Joanna Zabinska.

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Planning
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Architect.- ARGE KISPI HdM Basel Ltd. / Gruner AG, Basel, Switzerland. 
Project Architect.- Herzog & de Meuron Basel Ltd, Basel, Switzerland. 
Site Architect.- Gruner AG, Basel, Switzerland. 
Structural Engineering.- ZPF Ingenieure AG, Basel, Switzerland. 
Civil Engineering.- EBP Schweiz AG., Zurich, Switzerland. 
Landscape Architect.- August + Margrith Künzel Landschaftsarchitekten AG, Binningen, Switzerland. 
Landscape Architect (Realisation).- Andreas Geser Landschaftsarchitekten, Zurich, Switzerland. 
HVAC Engineering.- Gruner AG, (Gruner Gruneko), Basel, Switzerland. 
Electrical Engineering.- Amstein + Walthert AG, Zurich, Switzerland. 
Building Automation & Smart Building: Jobst Willers Engineering AG, Zurich, Switzerland. 
Plumbing Engineering.- Ingenieurbuero Riesen AG, Bern, Switzerland. 
Cost Consulting: Gruner AG, Basel, Switzerland. 

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Collaborators
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Fire Protection Consulting.- Gruner AG, Basel, Switzerland.
Facade Consulting: Pirmin Jung Ingenieure AG, Rain, Switzerland.
Facade Consulting: Buri Mueller Partner GmbH, Burgdorf, Switzerland.
Building Physics Consulting.- Kopitsis Bauphysik AG, Wohlen, Switzerland.
Medical Planning.- Evomed AG, Duebendorf, Switzerland.
Medical Planning.- Institut fuer Beratung im Gesundheitswesen, (IBG), Aarau, Switzerland.
Laboratory Planning.- Laborplaner Tonelli AG, Gelterkinden, Switzerland.
Office Consulting.- Kinzo Architekten GmbH, Berlin, Germany.
Climate Engineering.- Transsolar Energietechnik GmbH, Stuttgart, Germany.
Sustainability Consulting & Environmental Engineering.- Basler & Hofmann West AG, Ingenieure, Planer und Berater, Zollikofen, Switzerland.
Sustainability Consulting & Environmental Engineering.- DB-B Dieter Bauer Beratungen, Bern, Switzerland.
Gastronomy Consulting.- Creative Gastro Concept und Design AG, Hergiswil, Switzerland.
Logistics Consulting.- AS Intra Move UG, Rheinfelden (Baden), Germany.
Lighting Consulting.- LichtKunstLicht AG, Bonn, Germany.
Signage Consulting.- Integral Axel Steinberg Zürich GmbH, Zurich, Switzerland.
Audio Visual Consulting.- RGBP AG, Thalwil, Switzerland.
Traffic Consulting.- Gruner AG, Basel, Switzerland.
Traffic Consuting.- moveIng AG, Basel, Switzerland.
Door Specialist.- TeKoSi AG, Thayngen, Switzerland.
Gestaltungsplan.- Planwerkstadt AG, Zurich, Switzerland.
Construction Geologist.- Dr. Heinrich Jaeckli AG, Zurich, Switzerland.

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Client Cliente
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Kinderspital Zürich – Eleonorenstiftung, Zurich, Switzerland; Martin Vollenwyder (Präsident Stiftungsrat); Heini Brugger (Vorsitz Baukommission); Françoise de Vries (Vorsitz Steuerungsausschuss); Thomas Hardegger (Gesamtprojektleiter, KOMOXX GmbH Planung & Projektmanagement); Marcel Müller (Gesamtprojektleiter, Novaloxx LLC).

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Area / Dimensions
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Building Data (Acute Hospital)
Site Area.- 33,250 sqm, 357,880 sqft.
Gross Floor Area (GFA).- 79,215 sqm, 852,610 sqft.
Gross Volume (GV).- 346,307 cbm, 12,226,200 cft.
Building Footprint.- 16,375 sqm, 176,260 sqft.
Building Dimensions.- Length 200 m, Width 110 m, Height 12-19 m.
Number of Levels.- 3 + 2 underground.

Building Data (Building for Research & Teaching)
Site Area.- 13,400 sqm, 144,240 sqft.
Gross Floor Area (GFA).- 16,101 sqm, 173,280 sqft / 930 sqm, 10,010 sqft (Tunnel).
Gross Volume (GV).- 66,342 cbm, 2,342,850 cft / 3,417 cbm, 120,670 cft (Tunnel).
Building Footprint.- 2,010 sqm, 21,640 sqft.
Building Dimensions.- Diameter 55.4 m, Height 30 m.
Number of Levels.- 7 + 2 underground.

Use / Function (Acute Hospital)
Functional Areas.- ∼48.
Rooms.- ∼2,300, of which 1,500 are for medical use.
Spatial Program.- ∼15,000 sqm (Examination & Treatment), ∼9,000 sqm (Care), ∼1,200 sqm (Administration), ∼7,600 sqm (Infrastructure), ∼1,900 sqm (Restaurant and Reception), 4,800 sqm (Underground Parking).
Beds.- 200 (Total), 51 (IPS/Neonatology), 114 (Bedwards).
Operating Rooms.- 6.
Corridor Length.- ∼5.5 km combined.
Car Parking.- 341.
Bicycle Parking.- 220.

Use / Function (Building for Research & Teaching).
Laboratories: ∼2,300 sqm (Diagnostic), ∼6,300 sqm (Research).
Teaching.- 1 lecture theatre (320 seats), 2 seminar rooms (100 seats), Agora as an interconnectable event venue (670-1,200 seats).
Study & Offices.- ∼80 workstations, ∼200 temporary workstations.
Bistro.- ∼70 seats open to the neighbourhood.
Bicycle Parking.- 130.
Sustainability.- SGNI Platin (Swiss Sustainable Building Council).

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Dates
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Competition.- 2011-2012. Project.- 2014-2024.

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Location Localización
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Universitäts-Kinderspital Zürich - Eleonorenstiftung. Steinwiesstrasse, 75. CH-8032 Zürich. Switzerland.

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Photography
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Herzog & de Meuron Architekten is a Swiss architecture firm, founded and headquartered in Basel, Switzerland in 1978. The careers of founders and senior partners Jacques Herzog (born 1950), and Pierre de Meuron (born 1950), closely paralleled one another, with both attending the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zürich. They are perhaps best known for their conversion of the giant Bankside Power Station in London to the new home of the Tate Museum of Modern Art (2000). Jacques Herzog and Pierre de Meuron have been visiting professors at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design since 1994 (and in 1989) and professors at ETH Zürich since 1999. They are co-founders of the ETH Studio Basel – Contemporary City Institute, which started a research programme on processes of transformation in the urban domain.

Herzog & de Meuron is a partnership led by five Senior Partners – Jacques Herzog, Pierre de Meuron, Christine Binswanger, Ascan Mergenthaler and Stefan Marbach. An international team of 38 Associates and about 362 collaborators.

Herzog & de Meuron received international attention very early in their career with the Blue House in Oberwil, Switzerland (1980); the Stone House in Tavole, Italy (1988); and the Apartment Building along a Party Wall in Basel (1988).  The firm’s breakthrough project was the Ricola Storage Building in Laufen, Switzerland (1987).  Renown in the United States came with Dominus Winery in Yountville, California (1998). The Goetz Collection, a Gallery for a Private Collection of Modern Art in Munich (1992), stands at the beginning of a series of internationally acclaimed museum buildings such as the Küppersmühle Museum for the Grothe Collection in Duisburg, Germany (1999). Their most recognized buildings include Prada Aoyama in Tokyo, Japan (2003); Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany (2005); the new Cottbus Library for the BTU Cottbus, Germany (2005); the National Stadium Beijing, the Main Stadium for the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China; VitraHaus, a building to present Vitra’s “Home Collection“, Weil am Rhein, Germany (2010); and 1111 Lincoln Road, a multi-storey mixed-use structure for parking, retail, a restaurant and a private residence in Miami Beach, Florida, USA (2010), the Actelion Business Center in Allschwil/Basel, Switzerland (2010). In recent years, Herzog & de Meuron have also completed projects such as the New Hall for Messe Basel Switzerland (2013), the Ricola Kräuterzentrum in Laufen (2014), which is the seventh building in a series of collaborations with Ricola, with whom Herzog & de Meuron began to work in the 1980s; and the Naturbad Riehen (2014), a public natural swimming pool. In April 2014, the practice completed its first project in Brazil: the Arena do Morro in the neighbourhood of Mãe Luiza, Natal, is the pioneering project within the wider urban proposal “A Vision for Mãe Luiza”.

Herzog & de Meuron have completed 6 projects since the beginning of 2015: a new mountain station including a restaurant on top of the Chäserrugg (2262 metres above sea level) in Toggenburg, Switzerland; Helsinki Dreispitz, a residential development and archive in Münchenstein/Basel, Switzerland; Asklepios 8 – an office building on the Novartis Campus in Basel, Switzerland; the Slow Food Pavilion for Expo 2015 in Milan, Italy; the new Bordeaux stadium, a 42’000 seat multifunctional stadium for Bordeaux, France; Miu Miu Aoyama, a 720 m² boutique for the Prada-owned brand located on Miyuki Street, across the road from Prada Aoyama, Tokyo, Japan.

In many projects the architects have worked together with artists, an eminent example of that practice being the collaboration with Rémy Zaugg, Thomas Ruff and with Michael Craig-Martin.

Professionally, the Herzog & de Meuron partnership has grown to become an office with over 120 people worldwide. In addition to their headquarters in Basel, they have offices in London, Munich and San Francisco. Herzog has explained, “We work in teams, but the teams are not permanent. We rearrange them as new projects begin. All of the work results from discussions between Pierre and me, as well as our other partners, Harry Gugger and Christine Binswanger. The work by various teams may involve many different talents to achieve the best results which is a final product called architecture by Herzog & de Meuron.”

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