Hidden in lush forests that are within walking distance from two of Norway’s largest hospitals, the Outdoor Care Retreat is a group of secluded wooden cabins that offer patients a relaxing space to enjoy the therapeutic benefits of nature. Designed by Snøhetta on behalf of the Friluftssykehuset Foundation, the cabins let patients get a break from rigorous treatment routines. Plus, a change in environment can help long-term hospitalization feel a little more manageable.
The Friluftssykehuset Foundation initiated the Outdoor Care Retreat project and developed it with the Oslo University Hospital's Department of Psychosomatics and CL-Child Psychiatry and Snøhetta. The Norwegian Minister of Health and Care Services opened the first Outdoor Care Retreat at the Oslo University Hospital, Rikshospitalet last June. A week later, another Outdoor Care Retreat opened near the Sørlandet Hospital Kristiansand in southern Norway.
The cabins can be used by any of the hospital's patients for treatment or to spend time with family and friends away from hospital corridors. Cabin reservations are managed through a booking system. Inspired by children's treehouses, the cabins appear like skewed wooden blocks that extend into the landscape, Snøhetta says. The massive wood of the main structure will turn gray over time and blend more into its surroundings.
The cabin's large glass windows, which can be opened, show off views of the landscape and allow light into its oak-clad interiors. At 35 m2, each cabin contains a main room, a smaller room for conversation and treatment, and a bathroom. Colorful pillows can be moved around so that children can build “forts” or lie down comfortably on the floor to gaze up at the tree canopies through a circular ceiling window. The cabins are also wheelchair-accessible and have angled entrances that are large enough for hospital beds.
“Nature provides spontaneous joy and helps patients relax. Being in natural surroundings brings them a renewed calm that they can bring back with them into the hospital,” says child psychologist Maren Østvold Lindheim at the Oslo University Hospital, one of the initiators of the project. “The Outdoor Care Retreat helps motivate patients to get through treatment and contribute to better disease management.”
Find more project photos and drawings in the gallery below.
1 Comment
There's a fine line between "playful" forms and gratuitously clunky. These meticulous objects -- more fine cabinetry than architecture -- seem more the latter. That said, the interiors artfully create multiple nooks for patients to have private space while sharing the same volume, if that's the intention. The design notwithstanding, the program for this project is quintessentially Northern European and sadly fundamentally foreign to the culture of US "healthcare."
"Hidden in lush forests that are within walking distance from two of
Norway’s largest hospitals, the Outdoor Care Retreat is a group of
secluded wooden cabins that offer patients ... a change in
environment can help long-term hospitalization feel a little more
manageable."
It's difficult to imagine "long-term hospitalization" in a US hospital for any patient healthy enough to walk to one of these cabins. While countries such as Norway are creating therapeutic buildings, the US is on the way to drive-in open-heart surgery.
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