Efficient and Sustainable Enlargement Project for an Obstetric Gynaecological Pavilion.

The project has been developed in the experimental thesis at the end of the single cycle Master’s degree course at the School of Engineering and Architecture of “Alma Mater

Studiorum, University of Bologna”. The project was carried out under the supervision of Professor Jacopo Gaspari as supervisor and professors Kristian Fabbri and Marco Foglieri as co-supervisors.

The thesis is focused on an enlargement project for the obstetric gynaecological pavilion inside the university hospital company of Bologna, Policlinico Sant’Orsola. The Sant’orsola hospital complex is located in the Municipality of Bologna, outside the city walls and therefore the historic centre itself. The Sant’Orsola-Malpighi extends in an isolated section about 1.8 km long, with a logistic organization of 27 pavilions, spread over 21 hectares.

The project takes as guidelines the contents of the competition notice for the enlargement formulated by the Hospital Company in the year 2016 to address the process of renovation and transformation of the district in a temporal perspective between five and ten years. The notice includes the project of adaptation, redevelopment and extension of the maternal centre for children, the first element of a wider strategic program of retraining promoted by the administration.

Hall 4 of the Sant’Orsola Hospital is a building, built in 1935, with neoclassical characteristics: the operations were respectful towards this protected building, without ruining the urban front.

The analytical phase carried out on the functional, technological and environmental aspects has led to develop a strategy of requalification and expansion of the pavilion identifying in the east sector of the current complex, the most suitable place for the intervention. In order to contain the impact generated by the new volumetries, also in compliance with the indexes provided and the protection of the surfaces treated to green, the emergency room of obstetrics and the entire operating plate have been conceived like a base underground for a part which occupies much of the eastern court, bounded on three sides by the existing factory bodies and on the fourth by the new wing, with maximum development in height of two floors above ground. In this volume, suitably divided into three juxtaposed blocks, to create some breaches that hint at the new functional vocation of the eastern court, the new environments find their place.

The realization of a comfortable and familiar environment for patients, especially women in childbirth, is a fundamental part of the project. Attempts have been made to achieve this through the inclusion of four birthing houses, intimate and familiar places in which women can live the path of motherhood and childbirth in total harmony. In fact, according to the World Health Organization, the hospital should not be an obligatory stop for healthy women who have had a pregnancy without complications. A “healing garden”, therapeutic garden, an environment specially designed to promote the improvement of the health and personal well- being of those who enjoy it, has also been inserted in the inner court.

One of the main objectives of the project is the energy efficiency of the new building, achieved through careful design choices with the help of passive systems and high performance materials.

• Concept e Progettazione: Guerra e Galeotti