Herlev Hospital

Nature has a healing effect on people. At Herlev Hospital this knowledge is taken seriously with lush courtyards, green roof gardens, and a large green heart that makes the new hospital vibrant and life-affirming to the core.

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Bjørn Ginman

Senior Lead Designer, Project Director, Landscape Architect MAA MDL

Location

Herlev, Denmark

Size

95.000 m2

Year

2010 — 2020

Client

Region Hovedstaden

Role

Lead landscape architect

Partners & Collaborators

Henning Larsen Architects, Friis & Moltke, Orbicon Leif Hansen, Norconsult, NNE Pharmaplan, Brunsgaard & Laursen

Together with Henning Larsen, SLA has designed the new addition to Herlev Hospital. SLA has been responsible for the landscape design and the planting strategy.

In total, the landscape design spans 95,000 m2 and includes hospital arrival space, internal courtyards, a public park area, green roofs, and parking spaces.

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Research clearly shows the great restorative value of prioritizing natural elements in our environment. Blood pressure, pulse, muscle tension, and other body stress indicators fall measurably when we interact with nature. This exact knowledge has been put into play in SLA’s design for Herlev Hospital.

The outdoor spaces are designed to appeal to all senses: From stress-relieving gardens and recreational corners to fragrant flower beds and playful pools of water. Since many of the hospital’s users are staying indoors the landscape is designed as a series of ’paintings’ that change character in tune with the seasons. With SLA’s landscape design Herlev Hospital will become a lush, vibrant and green hospital where people will not only feel better than they usually do – they will also heal faster.

fig. 4 Nature has a strong presence in most parts of the hospital.
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Three important drivers behind SLA’s planting strategy were to create a strong sense of living nature, optimal opportunities for biodiversity, and a minimum of expenses for maintenance. Among other things, this led to the design of special seed mixes and of different soil types where different biotopes can develop. With the vital plants and a certain ‘self-grownness,’ we have also ensured that expenses and resources for maintenance and irrigation are kept to an absolute minimum.

With SLA’s landscape design, Herlev Hospital becomes a lush, vibrant, and green hospital where patients, relatives, and employees have views and access to nature and its beneficial effects. The nature design thus helps reduce patients’ hospitalization times, reduces stress and anxiety for both patients, employees and visitors, and at the same time strengthens biodiversity and adapt all outdoor spaces to the climate through nature-based design solutions.

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“Herlev Hospital stands out as one of the most significant recent achievements, evoking the potential that landscape design in a hospital can express. It also shows an ethical and aesthetic approach capable of reconciling ecological and economic factors within the overarching paradigm of sustainability.”

— Gabriele Paolinelli, Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Università degli Studi di Firenze.
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Fundamentals

Come explore the fundamentals of our office together with us

fund. 12

Mist

Mist is a phenomenon caused by small droplets of water suspended in air. Physically, it is an example of a dispersion. It is most commonly seen where warm, moist air meets sudden cooling, such as…

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fund. 20

Sakuteiki
– The Book of Garden

Sakuteki – The Book of Garden is a manual, a textbook for Japanese gardeners in the 11th century. This introduction sounds like this: “In making the garden, you should first understand the overall principles. According…

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fund. 19

Essay: The Bark Room

“Bark is both living and dead, growing and cracking, a shell, a protective layer and an integral part of the wood’s tissue. It’s the bark structure and the way it peels, which separates the different…

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fund. 27

White

“In the beginning was chaos. While the universe began to expand after Big Bang it also decreased in temperature. It became more and more ordered. With that order, the Universe changed its background colour toward…

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fund. 26

Sound

“Sound. The soundtrack of our lives often passes us by without us noticing. But I have begun noticing the poetry of the noises around me. The rhythm and the song of the poet. The calling…

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fund. 26

Atmosphere

“Atmosphere is a thin film of enclosure around our world. Without our vaporous, water filled atmosphere, life on Earth – or indeed life anywhere – would not exist. But atmosphere is also what you sense…

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fund. 25

Roots

“A tree consists of three parts: Its foliage, its trunk, and its roots. All three parts are important for the aesthetic feeling of nature. But of these three I find the roots most intriguing, most…

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