Project category: Project in progress (December 2007)

Chief administrator: Xu Wei-Qing, Administrator, (86) 215917-7339

Firms: Carl Shen Architects and Associates, (886) 22705-1221; Chyi Wu Architects and Associates, (886) 22754-5783; Century International Consultants, (86) 216485-9616

Design team: Carl Shen, Project Director (Carl Shen Architects and Associates); Chyi Wu, Project Architect (Chyi Wu Architects and Associates); Revy Chou, Project Designer (Century International Consultants)

Total building area (sq. ft.): 640,000

Construction cost/sq. ft.: $94 (U.S.)

Total construction cost (excluding land): $60,000,000 (U.S.)

Nan Xiang is an elegant township of metropolitan Shanghai. Shanghai Nan Xiang General Hospital is designed to serve this township with emergency, outpatient, inpatient, and long-term care in one facility. An existing retirement home to the north shares a lake and a parking lot with the hospital.

Taking inspiration from the architectural tradition of the township, the hospital is scaled down with a sloping tile roof over simple geometric volumes and decorated with vernacular eave projections to give a residential, even festive, appearance. The site is extensively landscaped with water ponds and local vegetation to effect a healing environment. A sinewy covered walkway ties the emergency, outpatient, and inpatient blocks together to allow all-weather drop-off to the various departments. The emergency department, which faces the main street, is designed to function independently during the evening. An airy, two-story lobby will accommodate the expected massive outpatient volume during the day, for which a semicircular garden will be provided beyond the examination rooms as an additional waiting area. A separate inpatient lobby leads past boutiques and gift shops to elevator banks serving two connected wings of inpatient wards to be implemented in phases.

The first phase, containing acute wards, is designed to curve back to complete a circuit of corridors. This allows easy access from the OBGY ward to the delivery and baby rooms on the second floor, and from the surgery ward to the operating rooms and surgery ICU on the third floor. The second phase will consist of amenities and long-term wards. Service and staff parking is underground.