Creating “New” Nature.
The site is located at Iizuka-city in Fukuoka prefecture. The hospital sits on the hill and is
surrounded by abundant nature.
At first, we were asked to design a migrational path for rehabilitation and the visiting people
to patients in hospital. We tried to design the route run through several environments,
because it might makes the walking people on the path feel comfortable and happy.
The open space beside a pond was named the place of “Yen”. “Yen” means a circular arc or an
opportunity to meet people in Japanese. We thought that this area should be continuously
designed by the use of circular arc motif for the hospital. Because the hospital is designed in
the motif of circular arc, and people can see this area when look up the hospital from frontal
road. In addition, we thought to need the strong identity like circular arc as against
surrounding abundant nature. The turf circular arcs of various sizes are kept in a horizontal
position. The most large turf circular arcs has a diameter of 39m, there is the pergola which
has 25 columns of 48.5mmφ.
There is the palliative care unit at the east side of the hospital, so the path and the palliative
care unit have to be separated from each other. We designed the meandering path which is
surrounded by trees, was named the tree-shaded walkway.
In the front garden of the palliative care, we plated any kinds of plants as if a paradise
garden. Because we wanted to provide sliver of life for patients of the palliative care
even if only a little.
At the south side of the site, we designed the space where visitor can get comfortable. The
space was named the place of flowering trees, placed benches and flowerbed.
In this project, it was most important thing for us to how design “nature” in nature. We tried
to create a fusion of the softness that nature has and the strength that artifact has, and
create the “new” nature. We hope that the “new” nature and abundant nature interact with
each other over the years, so will become one environment.
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