CIVIL HOSPITAL, SAMANA, PUNJAB
Architect: Sarbjit Singh Bahga, Chandigarh
This 100-bed hospital building is designed on strict Cartesian pattern with emphasis on functional utility, comfort and convenience to the patients, and their attendants. It incorporates four blocks which accommodate different functions. All these blocks are well connected by a wide corridor running perpendicular to them. Two jutting-out staircase-blocks and a three-flight ramp provide vertical access, and connect the linking corridor at the upper level. To facilitate free flow of traffic, and to avoid intermingling of different categories of patients, these blocks have been provided with independent approaches. The central and the main entry to the hospital have been made conspicuous by a large double-height porch.
The building is designed in reinforced-concrete grid having a module of 6m x 6m. All service-pipes are housed in vertical shafts, which form a dominant and repetitive feature on the facades. These shafts also act as buffer-spaces between the outside and inside resulting in cool interiors in summers. A well worked-out combination of horizontal and vertical straight lines on the exteriors gives the building a strong and impactful expression of modernity. The building?s functional, aesthetical and sensible architecture is free from the clich of the so called post-modernism.