Psychiatric clinic CHUV

Site

Although its abuts the city, the Cery site is well-structured: A large country plateau framed by a forest and two “topographic windows” on the sides opening up to the countryside and the distant panorama.

This description of the site prefigures our interpretation of the program and its organization within the terrain. Indeed, the site combines the two principal characters of this hospital project: An interior that is contained and protected, an exterior that is open and connected.

Master plan

By 2016, the new plan for Cery will materialize in a succession of buildings situated in a large park. They are pictured as images of a vibrant undulation that will stretch over the entire length of the park. If viewed as a cellular cytoplasm, the buildings seem to be carried by the fluidity of empty space, adapted to the geometric and topographic contours of the site.

The low shapes facilitate an easy and direct relation with the park, avoiding any effect of monumentality or an imposing frontal appearance.

By 2025, the project will be completed, with its rehabilitation functions and the accommodations set on the “Traverse”, a landscaped transverse entity composed of the central arboretum and two “topographic windows”. This landscaped entity opens up to the outside while also being a symbolic passing place. Between the hospital world and the outside world it functions as a space for transition and exchange. The two locations are also connected by the existing infrastructures, to the west linking to the LEB railroad, to the east to the cantonal highway, with both serving as access to the site. With the vegetable garden, orchard and accommodations already started, this entity will be completed by the full range of rehabilitation, the key program for reconnecting with the outside world.

The master plan ends in the north with a taller building dedicated to research and teaching activities. That emblematic building will also be a reference point for the visitor.

A main service road will circle the site, leaving the entity of the park intact. It will also have different parking areas.

Spaces created / spaces lived

The planned layout permits a strong relation between the program and the park, between the outside and inside thematics, of the exterior and the interior. The undulating shape is like breathing, carrying the exchange with the outside environment, like the base of the gills of a fish or of a batrachian.

Since the park lies between the buildings, the common spaces are pushed to the outside and take on the character of pavilions.

The corridors are replaced by fluid, lighted strolling spaces, open to the park, bordering on common spaces for lounging, relaxation and physical rehabilitation, and on the terraces etc.

An enclosure composed of successive sheets creates spaces for horses between the inside and the outside: the inner perimeter, continuous and transparent, forms a heated space. The outer perimeter, extending at a variable distance from the first enclosure, is constituted of an undulating confinement. It creates alternately loggias or balconies, at once providing a sun screen and a privacy screen for occasionally blocking the full view of the garden.