Herzog & de Meuron (HdM) has updated their progress on the new 14.69-million-square-foot University Children's Hospital in Zurich after its ten-year journey to completion. The two-building program contains 2,300 rooms and roughly 48 different functional areas alternating between three and seven above-grade stories for each respective Acute Care and Research/Teaching functions. 

There are a total of 200 beds and underground parking spaces for 341 cars in the former, while the larger research building contains a total of 280 permanent or temporary workstations, a bistro, 320-seat lecture theater, two 100-seminar rooms, and combined laboratory spaces equal to almost 92,600 square feet (8,600 square meters).

As the largest-such children’s facility in Switzerland, the project replaces a long-outdated facility with a comprehensive space that combines academic knowledge and guidance with proven holistic methods (e.g. natural sunlight and air) and the most up-to-date medical technologies. The firm says their aim throughout was a "sheltered and comfortable" atmosphere for patients and their families.

The Acute Care facility is located to the south of the site, binding older hospital buildings via a shared forecourt with the historic University Psychiatric Clinic (or Burghölzli) from 1869 next door. Courtyards are thereafter connected via a 'main street' path that extends inside to cover three floors and provide "intuitive wayfinding." The top floor is designed to house patients in 114 wooden 'cottages', each with its own roof. Its opposite, the circular research facility, organizes different research activities around a five-story skylit atrium.

Jacques Herzog says: "Here at the Children’s Hospital, people can see for themselves how daylight coming in  from outside and variations in proportion can animate and change a room, how plants and vegetation can blur the distinction between inside and outside and how materials are not just beautiful to look at but also pleasing to the touch. We designed all  these things with conscious intent so that people can perceive them, sense them and ultimately feel better. Architecture can contribute to healing."

Christine Binswanger served as the project's Partner-in-Charge. This is HdM's most recent academic medical facility following the underway University Hospital in Basel and the forthcoming UCSF Health Helen Diller Hospital for the University of California in San Francisco, which broke ground in early May.