Finalist: Tessa Crosby
Social Sutures: The Integration of the Medical Facility into the Urban Tissue by Tessa Crosby, Unitec Department of Architecture.
Social Sutures explores the relationship between architecture, urban design and healthcare. Hospitals, frequently, are large institutional complexes located on city fringes. What if a multifunctional institution was stitched into a city’s urban tissue? This scheme – for a Regional Oncology Centre in Auckland’s CBD – investigates just that. This work contends that such a design would provide greater social connection for patients and enhance inclusion, significance and belonging in the wider social context.
Citation
This well-researched and articulated project relocates an oncology building from the isolated hospital campus to a central CBD site. It re-imagines the ground floor as a public convention centre and the beginning of an architectural promenade through the site and building. The project is a humane and sensitively conceived piece of work.
