Krankenhaus Hedwigshöhe

The hospital must be integrated into the local community. This has been a political demand for the field of psychiatry since the Psychiatric Enquete in the 1970s. It must not become a closed institution, but must be integrated into the urban fabric. Hedwigshöhe Hospital on the south-eastern outskirts of Berlin forms the end of the new garden city on Falkenberg. This is a direct extension of the ‘Tuschkasten-Siedlung’, a cooperative housing development from the early 20th century by Bruno Taut.
The hospital originated in the Buntzel Villa, surrounded by gardens that can be understood as a manifesto of a Prussian horticultural designer. The tower and villa face an open landscape garden. Around the buildings are gardens with different themes: a baroque garden, a landscape garden and open countryside. The playfully offset pavilions of the psychiatric wards are anchored by the elongated building of the somatic ward. It forms the backbone of the small ‘city within a city’. The hospital is connected to its surrounding areas. The central square in the middle marks the end of the main access road in the residential quarter, beyond the ‘soft line’ to the open landscape and to ‘Central Park’ – a linear park that forms the heart of the garden city. Most of the hospital grounds will become a public park, a new meeting place for residents of the garden city and patients. The sweeping view across Lake Müggelsee into the countryside is noticeably relaxing. The concept of empathy expresses where architecture creates added value and can offer unexpected and surprising qualities. Here, specifically: the staging of the transition from the settlement on the outskirts of the city to the open countryside.