LIMNOS GENERAL HOSPITAL

LIMNOS, GREECE

The project involved the conversion of existing facilities as well as the addition of new buildings.

The Limnos General Hospital was an existing pre – 1940 hospital that required renovation and the conversion of many of its facilities into new and more up to date functions. The renovation and conversion part of the project was the first step towards the creation of a contemporary hospital. The new hospital buildings include an outpatients’ department for civilian and military staff, operating theatres, an intensive care department, surgical and medical wards, laboratories, administration and nursing facilities, delivery rooms and a kidney dialysis unit. Provision was also made for a wartime emergency surgical department.

The five new three-storey wings, some with one and some with two basements, are laid out in L-shaped form, the two existing buildings being on the inside corner of the “L”. All buildings are connected via an interdepartmental corridor.

The exposed brick façades of the new buildings, together with the stark concrete forms enveloping the extensions, contrast with the older neoclassical whitewashed hospital buildings. The vertical blinds of the façades protect the internal spaces from direct sunlight and add to the juxtaposition between new and old. The objective of the overall volumetric composition, together with the more specific design decisions such as colour, was to be in harmony with the overriding presence of the barren mountains and rocky landscape of the island of Limnos.