i n s t i t u t i o n a l c i t y t h e s i s r e p o r t

a s y l u mt u t o r s : h u g h c a m p b e l l a n d j o h n p a r k e r

m i c h a e l d o h e r t yu.c.d 5th a r c h i t e c t u r e

c o n t e n t s

t a b l e o f c o n t e n t s

4 I n t r o d u c t i o n

5 s i t e a n a l y s i s

8 P r e c e d e n t s 8 a a l t o p a i m i o 9 g r a f t o n b o c c o n i 10 f u j i m o t o c h i l d r e n s c e n t r e f o r p s y c h i a t r i c r e h a b i l i t a t i o n

12 T h e o r e t i c a l t h i n k i n g 12 i n s t i t u t i o n a l c i t y 13 c o n c e p t 15 s c a l e 20 b i b l i o g r a p h y

4 a s y l u m

i n t r o d u c t i o n

Introduction

The National Children’s Hospital will be a large institution in the city which is currently be-ing planned for a site adjacent to the Mater Hospital, between Eccles Street and Berkeley Road. A topical project, with many points of view being expressed with regards to thehospitals proposed siting, it will accommodate 392 inpatient beds, 53 day-care beds and 122,000 emergency/urgent care attendances per year. At an area of over 115,000m2, it will approximate-ly be the size of Terminal 2 at Dublin Airport.

As a group, we have the opportunity to re-imagine the hospital typology in a way that apractice, under the constraints of time, could not. We began our investigation in three areas:

- City within a city- The room within a city- Fantasy and imaginary cities

and we studied a series of prece-dents, from the 18th century to today.

During the course of the thesis, we had brief-ings with Paul de Freyne of the HSE and Sean Mahon of O’Connell Mahon Architects, with regards to their approach to the National Children’s Hospital project, as well as Prof Alan Dilani, an expert in healthcare design who is a founder and general director of the In-ternational Academy for Design and Health.

5a s y l u m

Site

The mater hospital, which is the current proposed location for the national children’s hospital, is a quite dense, six hectare urban site on Dublins north side, hemmed between the north circular road, Berkeley Road, Eccles Street and Dorset St. The site was selected in the Report of the Joint Health Service Executive/ Department of Health and Children Task Group to advise on the optimum location of the new national paediatric hospital. The central tenet in choosing an appropriate siting was that of co-location with an existing hospital structure, to cre-ate a centre of excellence. The two hospitals that emerged as the most credible sites were that of St James and The Mater Misericordiae, primarily due to the range of specialities already being offered in

these institutions. The Mater Misericordiae was the ultimate successor, due to ground works being much further advanced than that of St James as well as its geographical location between St James and Beaumont.

a s y l u m

a n a l y s i s

From early on, my point of interest moved away from the proposed site within the boundaries of the Mater Misericordiae hospital. The site is al-ready rather dense, having recently received a new adults hospital to its north side. Indeed it was this hospital that caused the most concern with re-gards to the new paediatric hospital, as the south lying site would leave this new wing almost perma-nently in shadow. The current proposal certainly accomplishes this feat, as its 16 floors dwarf the 8 of the adult hospital lying due north. Coupled with this was the fact that the 16 floors of the proposed structure is most probably the smallest volume ac-complishable for the brief on that site. At 16 floors, it promises to be the tallest building in Dublin, in an area where 8 floors constitutes a landmark.Alternately, my focus shifted to the Mountjoy prison site which lies directly across the North Circular road to the north of the Mater Misericordiae.Per-sonally speaking, three points of note appropriated

Urban connector. relation of site to the Royal Canal

a s y l u m

this site. Firstly, the prison is already condemned, being passed as inhumane for human occupation and consigned to relocation to Thornton Hall, a site outside the city boundaries which has already been purchased by the government. Secondly, this soon to be free, Mountjoy site, offered a large portion of prime urban space, much in contrast to the clut-tered Mater Misericordiae condition. It comprises of 7.5 hectares of key urban land, pinned between the north circular road and the Royal Canal. Last-ly, this site grounds the theory for this thesis, as it constitutes a vast area of institutional city, a portion that will need to be re-appropriated once the prison has moved, a piece that, along with the Mater Mi-sericordiae site, has proved an institutional block within the city strata dating back to Victorian times.

Institutional City, the watch towers of Mountjoy prison loom

8 a s y l u m

p r e c e d e n t

Alvar Aalto

Paimio

An Institution Challenged

Aalto Paimio hospital for Tuberculosis championed a modernist ideal in medical architecture, sun, air and views. There was no known cure for Tubercu-losis in 1929, which resulted in the death of more than 100 people per week in Finland. . The sche-matic site plan with a kitchen/boiler block, a restau-rant block and the ward block combined to frame the entrance. The wards face south east and are entered from a long gallery at the back. At the end of the block was an open decked solarium fac-ing directly south. The Solarium allowed access to fresh air for bed ridden patients. it was struc-turally adventurous, with the rear wall acting as a huge cantilever from a solid foundation so that the south facing decks could be entirely column free. The primary point of interest was the attention to detail at the scale of the mass building, non-splash sinks for each patient, designed l shaped windows with incorporated bench for each bed, retractable door handles so as to prevent clothes catching on it, and metal handles on double swing doors with wood inserts where the hand makes contact. Modern architecture could create humane and comfortable spaces without resorting to motifs.

Attention to Detail, non-splash sink

South Facing Roof Solarium

Parkland Setting

9a s y l u m

Grafton Architects

Bocconi

Integration of a City into a City

A project of “the ground and sky”, the extension to MIlans Bacconi University by Grafton architects is the exemplar of how to incorporate a city within a city. Restricted by height of 22 meters and the param-eters of a 160 x 80 meter site for a program of some 68,000 msq, the adopted solution was to go sub stratum. The fear of creating dingy, poorly lit space was counteracted by adopting the character of Mi-lan itself, using the courtyard gardens, grand piaz-zas and the stone floor as touchstone moments. The result is a true integration into the Milan urban mor-phology, through the creation of new public routes underneath accommodation for 1000 professors.

Attention to Detail, non-splash sink

South Facing Roof Solarium

Parkland Setting

Under Croft space, stone floor

Long Section through Voids

Plan

10 a s y l u m

p r e c e d e n t

Sou fujimoto

Childrens Centre for Psychiatric Rehabilita-tion

A Building through the Minds eye

Situated in Hakkaide, Japan, this novel approach to rehabilitation comprises of the “Loose” method of spatial arrangement. Loosely arranging thevolumes for the complex program allows for the creation of the intimacy of a house as well as the variety of the city. The intent of the project is solely focused around the child’s mind, the small, random alcove spaces between the regular boxes creating plentiful hiding places, spaces which the child can feel alone, though still being supervised.

Loose Layout, Spatial arrangement to create the fealing of series of houses

Social Space

11a s y l u m

Social Space

12 a s y l u m

T h e o r e t i c a l t h i n k i n g

Institutional City

“the existence of institution, the locus of voluntary or compulsory community life, is perennial in the history of organized societies” (Mc Cullough, 1987,p99)

The reformation, coupled with the secularism it brought with it, heralded the arrival of a more specific range of institutions throughout Europe, encompassing all aspects of social structure, in-cluding our specific institutions of the jail and the hospital. These social structures contained a transient inhabitant, temporarily or permanently removed from society at large for education, re-ligious devotion, re-appropriation or rehabilita-tion. They were at the forefront of modernity, a cornerstone of centralised power and an impera-tive in the structuring of the new great cities.

“history has given them all a sullied image: le-gions of pale soldiers, seminarians, scholars, the sick, the incapable and the imprisoned have left a legacy of alienation and mistrust which has found expression in literature, song and folk history” (Mc Cullough, 1987,p99)

The term asylum immediately forwards the idea of the institution. In turn the notion of the institu-tion prompts a regressive vision, an overarch-ing power that moulds society in an image of the states desires. Institutions of all nature were ar-chitecturally arranged in a hierarchical order, a relationship between the authority and the client, between the guard and the inmate, between the patient and the doctor. Many architectural endea-vours within the realm of healthcare and deten-tion were based on theories of the enlightenment, ranging from Florence Nightingales ideas of the beneficial effects of light and air on the patient in the hospital to ideas of the relationship between the observer and the observed in the prison. The institution architecturally expressed this relation-ship through classical orders, pediments, cupo-las and columns, and scale. These expressions can be felt at the main entranced to the old Mater Hospital building and the gate house to Mountjoy.

Domineering Institution in the Irish Landscape, Portrane Asylum

13a s y l u m

A Conceptual Basis

My thesis supposes the reimagining of one institu-tion and the reintegration of another within the city fabric, through the theoretical lense of the prison. The Institution that is Mountjoy prison forms a predominant spatial and theoretical driver in this thesis. Designed by Joshua Jebb in 1850, Mountjoy was based on the model prison at Pentinville, London, also designed by Jebb. As was the case with the model prison, it was in-tended for men who were sentenced to transpor-tation to Van Damiens Land. Originally designed with 500 hundred identical cells, the prison was spatially arranged for supervision , to set up a commanding relationship between the detainee and the officer. This layout comprised of 4 ra-dial wings, with a central hall at the intersection

“where the four wings met was an ample central hall commanding a sequence of panoramic views down each of the succeeding galleries. Every door to every cell could be seen from this one point” (Evans, 1982, p349)

This was a relationship of control. Poignant glazed “bays jutted out from the commissioner and governor’s office into the central hall, allowing them this all-encompassing view of the rest of the prison interior” (Evans, 1982, p349)

Every prisoner came and left through this central hall, the abiding memory. The windows were de-signed so as to be just high enough to make out-ward viewing almost impossible. Even if the con-vict did manage to raise himself high enough to peer outwards, the view was severely distorted by the by fluting in the glass, the form and con-tent of the exterior world were obliterated.

Pentonville model Prison, London

Pentonville model Prison, observatory

14 a s y l u m

T h e o r e t i c a l t h i n k i n g

The theoretical imputes came In the reversal of these values, an inverse prison. The central point of supervision that orders the prison has been re-placed by a point of play. The point of entrance and exit is recast as a social space. The entrapped world of the prison is inverted into out looking world, look-ing out to a series of undulation gardens that flow in through the now shell prison block to the matt of the hospital. Instead of an internalised world, each room shall have a small outside space, perhaps turning the room into an outdoor hospital, at times. The ward is envisaged as a room, a room of rooms, a playroom that opens up to the outside world, a world a of courtyard parks, that looks out to the city.

Theoretical concept, the above ward model places a social space as the focal point in the plan, as opposed to the prison plan which radiates out from the observatory, point of authority

15a s y l u m

Three Scales of Operation

Asylum, as a group, set about tackling the mass scale of the institution by working through three scales, three congruent trains of thought. In this regard, the project can be broken down to the scale of the room, the scale of the stand-alone institution and the scale of the city. It is then recompiled to form a linked in piece of mass infrastructure in to the fabric of inner city Dublin

The Scale of the City

A City Within the City The urban strategy in this thesis is the in-version of the current realities. As is, the two insti-tutions of Mountjoy Prison and the Mater hospital form an urban blockage in Dublin’s city fabric. It is proposed that, contra to this reality, the site could be used as an urban link, a infrastructural mass that binds the original Mater hospital, the New Paediat-ric Hospital, the reformed parkland prison site and the royal canal as one piece of urban, public space. In this regard, the scope of the project stretches far beyond the scope of the Mountjoy site, and is seen in the context the city as a whole rather than a segregated section, i.e., an inversion of the current.

Urban Strategy, the reintegration of the institutional space into the city fabric

1 a s y l u m

The scheme proposes to link into the Royal Ca

nal Linear Park. This a recent competition win

ning project which envisions the reconfiguration of

the royal canal, a new urban street, with floating

pavilions, parkland, running tracks, play spaces,

bridge cafes and recreational facilities. I propose

the Mountjoy site, which lies between the Mater

Hospital and the canal, as being a natural exten

sion to this proposed scheme, a break out space

from the confines of the canal. In essence, an ex

tended urban space of the original mater hospital,

the new pediatric hospital and the royal canal com

bine to form one mass stretch of public, integrat

ed, deinstitutionalised city, a city within the city.

1a s y l u m

s c a l e

Fantasy City

The Scale of the Institution

This thesis, an anti-thesis of Enlightenment prison rationale, uses the institution in a meta-phorical and actual sense. The Victorian Mountjoy prison, a landmark structure in the morphological evolution of Dublin city, is retained in accordance with Rossian thought. It is envisioned as a deinsti-tutionalised, shelled out structure left as a historical marker in the landscape, which now acts as a grand atrium space that mediates between the hospital and the parkland behind it. The shell, winged struc-ture forms a gathering device from the park into the central, external courtyard of the hospital. This courtyard then proceeds past the entrance space, under the north circular road and on into the origi-nal Mater campus proper. It is proposed that this campus is ridded of its outlying ephemeral struc-tures to be replaced by a new public urban space with some commercial activities. A stop for the pro-posed metro north line is seen as rising into this space, activating it in unison with the project as a whole. From the outset, I intended to intertwine the workings of the hospital with the public realm, con-tra to the masked system of the modern hospital.

The plan form takes up the grain of the existing hos-pital campus and the prison which is aligned due south. Ordered around an external courtyard, the outpatients department is situated to the east and inpatients to the west. The idea for the hospital as a whole is that that each ward bank corresponds with its associated specialties below, as the wards are segregated by treatment. The structure orders the space in section, whereby the wards are housed vertically above the treatment spaces and are ac-cessed by the medical staff vertically at either end of each unit. Public circulation rises through the centre of the unit, each of which is ordered around the central public courtyard. Each unit can be viewed as an autonomous architectural piece.

18 a s y l u m

s c a l e

Room within the City

The room experience and space is fundamental to this thesis. The experience of the ward is where the inversion of the prison was realised in its most competent from. From the genesis, the idea was to remove the authority figure from the central per-spective of the child and replace it with a social, play space. The nurses’ station is moved to the ward entrance, where a good all round visibility is maintained without acting as the central focus within the space. During the course of the 60s and 70s, the visual perspective from the nurses’ station, in a bid to cut nursing numbers and cost, became the primary ordering principal for the hospital form. In this machine ethos hospital era, where the pa-tient was seen as an item that needed to be fixed via the instrument of the hospital, multiple, internal rooms and spaces pervaded, accompanied by the obligatory air conditioner and the planned location of the nurses’ station. This thesis is a reaction to this type of medicine and a move to the Nightin-gale school of thought, whereby copious amounts of natural light and ventilation play as important a role in the regeneration of health as that of medi-cine. In this light, each room is provided with an ex-terior balcony space, which lets the room flow out to the exterior courtyards. Indeed, this is seen as a room in itself, free to wander around, with a cen-

tral social space and a recreation space to the end of the wing. The wards are constructed in a steal frame structure, so as to keep the space free from load baring walls, allowing for flexible space that can be re-appropriated to differing uses, including none healthcare functions. The central, south fac-ing play space can open to the exterior, in tandem with the main social/play space at the entrance to the ward. The roof is activated space, where vari-ous recreational, therapeutic, educational and re-habilitative spaces provide a view back to the city

19a s y l u m

20 a s y l u m

T h e s i s P r e p o s a l

b i b l i o g r a p h y

Hertzberger, Herman. Articulations. Prestel Publishing, 2002

evans, robin, the fabriction of virtue, cambridge university press, 1982

O Donnell, S & Tuomey, J. O Donnell + Tuomey Selected Works. Princeton Architectural Press, New York, 200

nicholas, ray, alvar aalto, yale university press, 2005

McCullough, Niall, A lost tradition : the nature of architecture in Ireland, Dublin : Gandon Editions, 198