The demands for hygiene, control and budget typically turn hospitals into enclosed boxes, separated from the environment, disconnected from “nature.” Hospitals can be regarded as perfectly balanced “installations.”

The building for the public program, such as the restaurant, the conference center and the library for the MMC in Veldhoven, has been designed as a covered garden with natural sunlight, a glass house acclimatized by flora that compensates for the introverted orientation of the rest of the hospital.

It gives the patient some freedom from the endless corridors and sterile medical environments. It’s a pyjama garden amid the Lysol disinfectant of the hospital ward. 

The functions are housed in mini-houses within the garden. The atrium will be the first step in re-fashioning the hospital as a “sea” of glass with lush gardens year-round, a green salve for an otherwise white wound.