HEALING LANDSCAPE / THERAPEUTIC ARCHITECTURE
A journey, a promenade that penetrates the landscape is the primer element of the design.
Two heavy concrete walls create a path between them that brings people from the water level to the top of the hill.
Patients arrive on the old sailing club of the Reservoir from where they take a small boat that takes them on the other side. At that point they can either walk up for 1 O minutes to reach the entrance of the complex or in case of a disablility they can take the furnicular railway which stops right outise the main reception of the building.
The landscape is the irrational part of this whole process and the architectural skim is the rational. Straight lines and cubistic forms are the architectural language of the design.
Simple solid volumes are introduced on both sides of the promenade. When someone moves between the walls can feel the sunlight penetrating from above or from small wholes or stripes on them. Snapshots of nature are given to the visitor or the patient reminding them that they are in a forest . A research unit for altrenative medicine and ways of treatment is located on the left part of the promenade. Close to end of the enclosed promenade is the most important part of it , treatment spaces that include thermal baths and turkish steam rooms. A tower with a flower bath on its bottom is the pick point of the design and it is visible even from the other side of the Reservoir.
Outdoor and indoor routes intertwine throughout the site, allowing people to move in and out of the building with fluid ease at various levels and enhancing the connection of interior and exterior. The inherent variety in the built forms and building orientations provide for surprises and experiences no one could plan for.
Day and night, these series of spaces provide so many beautiful perspectives for visitors from within and from without. In the daytime it blends with its surroundings or looks like an object building from a distance.
The entire concept behind the design of this institute is to bring people with problems in an isolated landscpape and with the aid of architecture to reenforce all the great values that nature has to offer to humans. Platforms, botanic gardens, solid walls, water pools, forest paths are elements of the skim that come together in order to complete and reveal an architectural image.
