PSY / Helsingør Psychiatric Hospital

As a starting point for work on the Helsingør Psychiatric Hospital, we interviewed the users, patients, and staff members. This helped to provide a clearer understanding of the basic needs on which to base our design approach, while at the same time clarifying an important paradox to be solved. How does one combine the efficiency of a central organization with the freedom and autonomy of a decentralized complex? The hospital needs to allow control and protection while maintaining a free and open atmosphere. In terms of function it should be a logistically optimized hospital, but in terms of experience it is anything but a hospital.

The success of this project both in terms of design and operation has led JDS Architects into a collaboration with some of the leading researchers and lecturers in hospital care. The hospital is utilized as a best practices example for modern hospital design. The result has been an in-depth review of the project, which evaluated both the successes and failures. The material was then assembled presented by hospital specialists Knut Bergland and Pernille Weiss Terkildsen throughout Scandinavia and the UK.