VITOS Outpatient psychiatric clinic for traumatized refugees

Christoph Hesse Architects·Korbach, Germany

2015Concepts · Architecture +HumanitarianismGovernment + Health

Year: 2015
Category: Concepts · Architecture +Humanitarianism
Type: Government + Health
Status: Built
Firm: Christoph Hesse Architects
Location: Korbach, Germany

VISION Originally, the client asked only for seven parking garages. However, we were lucky to convince him to build two extra floors for an outpatient psychiatric clinic. Because of the huge number of immigrants (1.1 million people in 2015) from Syria and other conflict regions in the Middle East, we were able to create space, which was desperately needed to take care of traumatized refugees. Today, the VITOS outpatient psychiatric clinic offers diagnostic and therapy as an ambulant treatment by psychologists, psychotherapists and social pedagogues.

PROJECT In the beginning, the long and narrow formed site between a street and railway tracks was considered as impossible to build on. Therefore, the form is based on cantilevers on all sites of the building. Only by doing this, there could be enough room for the clinic. Additionally, the two extra floors were necessary from an urban design and social point of view. On the one hand, the building picks up the heights of the surrounding and creates an appropriate mass in the urban fabric. On the other hand, the use of the building brings life into the neighborhood and supports the long-term integration of refugees into the local community.

Collaborators

Christoph Hesse Architects

lead

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