The expansion delivers patients and clinical staff a state-of-the-art, modern facility designed for recovery. Spacious bathrooms, appealing wood-grain flooring, and a private living area are just the beginning. The renovation of Mönchengladbach Municipal Clinics also introduced 17 generously proportioned private rooms, each commanding views of the surrounding greenery and featuring its own balcony. Thoughtful interior design combined with comprehensive building systems create the comfort of a luxury hotel room, making each patient's stay as pleasant as possible. Each room includes a living area that can serve as sleeping quarters for visiting relatives when needed. All bathrooms are spacious, beautifully appointed, and fully accessible. Vertical window elements flood the bathrooms with natural light.

Yet the private ward represented just one component of the "North Extension" – the ambitious expansion through which the clinics, partnering with HDR architects, addressed the facility's evolving operational needs. A new building to the east of Building B now houses the main entrance with administrative patient check-in and the central emergency department with ambulance access. The first floor accommodates a 25-bed intensive care unit. The second floor expanded the existing operating theatre department with a hybrid operating suite (ISO Class 1a), angiography equipment, and two outpatient operating rooms. On the third floor sits the interdisciplinary private ward – a space where comfort and recovery converge.

The new building's façade draws inspiration from the existing cantilevered balconies, reinterpreting them through fiber cement panels and motorized aluminum louvers in anodized finish that provide solar control. A comprehensive lighting strategy balances clinical requirements with patient and visitor well-being and comfort. The outpatient emergency department functions as a complete, self-contained unit featuring five examination and treatment rooms, a plaster room, both septic and aseptic procedure spaces, plus dedicated shock rooms for internal medicine and surgery. Through the preliminary "Radiology North Wing" initiative, Building B's north section was repurposed to house the radiology department, now equipped with CT and MRI imaging systems.

www.hdrinc.com/de/portfolio

Photography Credits:

Joachim Grothus
www.joachimgrothus.de

(Published in CUBE Düsseldorf 02|20)