New North Zealand Hospital

Right now, Vilhelm Lauritzen Architects is working in conjunction with Herzog & De Meuron Architects on the winning submission for Nyt Hospital Nordsjælland (New North Zealand Hospital).

The hospital is being constructed as a greenfield project and includes construction of Nyt Hospital Nordsjælland (New Hospital North Zealand) and surrounding landscaping works on the site, which will be located as an integrated part of the commercial and residential area, Favrholm by Overdrevsvejen, south of Hillerød town.

Capital Region is building a new hospital for citizens in North Zealand. The ambition is to create a functional, flexible, and healing setting for the future.

Capital Region’s hospital plan will merge the two current hospitals in North Zealand into a new modern, acute reception hospital with joint emergency and accident handling as a central element.

The new hospital will come to contain approx. 20 clinical departments and will cover more than 310,000 citizens who formerly were divided between hospitals in Hillerød, Helsingør, and Frederikssund. The hospital will have a floor area of approx. 122,000m2 and will contain 570 beds including accident and emergency and intensive care, as well as outpatient departments, surgery theatres, diagnostic imaging departments, etc.

The architecture

The new hospital’s wings will dip in and out of the gently curved landscape south of Hillerød. The curved facades’ recesses embrace and frame the arrival of visitors to the building.

Despite its 118,000m2, Nyt Hospital Nordsjælland will not appear monumental and forbidding for patients, visitors, and employees. Its organic composition stands in stark contrast to other super hospitals that have sprung up in recent years. The building has been scaled to humans. In harmony with the surrounding landscape, the building will, despite its size, offer a homeliness and sense of security to everyone who comes into contact with the hospital.

The building’s iconic floorplan encircles an inner protected garden space that is well suited to small, tentative outdoor trips for recovering patients. The outer landscape space with paths and nature courses will be a great breathing space for stronger patients, visitors, and staff.

Humane materiality

The house is decked with a timber facade that will age to a natural greyish tone. When you enter the building ceilings, walls, fixed furnishings, and other surfaces will be clad in light timbers to meet the eye and hand. In time, Nyt Hospital Nordsjælland will emerge as a patinated Nordic design classic – tactile and marked by the people who have passed through its environs.