The Project
The design of a new building for specialist activities in the University Complex of Santa Sofia that is located inside the university area of the General Hospital of Catania, a part of the city made up of different buildings, inside a thick urban fabric, with complex features of coexistence between the university and the healthcare organizations.
The aim was to design a large complex made up of five buildings each one clearly identifiable both formally and in terms of function.
The first building is a two-storey block that houses the day hospital and specialist surgeries: cardiology, orthopedics, oncology, plastic and maxillofacial surgery, urology and vascular surgery.
The second building is a high and compact double tower building which houses the in-patient department with 210 beds and the horizontal and vertical connections between all the activities and buildings.
The third building is also a two-storey block for the operating unit with ten operating rooms and related services, sterile in-patients department with nine beds in the intensive care unit plus an isolated bed and four beds in the burns unit.
The fourth building is curved and linear, staggered on different levels and is intended for research and study activities with consequent plans for studies and rooms for seminars, offices and space for the general services of the complex such as the large technological units (water system, UPS, electric boxes, generators, heating subsystem and refrigerator system), warehouses, launderettes and staff changing rooms.
