The new building of the Centre for Geriatric Psychiatry, which belongs to the St. Pirminsberg Clinic in the canton of St. Gallen, encloses three inner courtyards. Form and façade stage an interplay of openness and closure that aims to meet the complex requirements in the treatment of psychiatric patients.
An endless circular route
The new three-storey building is located on the western edge of the clinic grounds, where the monastery's carp pond was once located. The sculptural structure skilfully mediates between the large volumes of the convent and extension buildings and the small-scale structure of the adjacent village. It consists of three interlocking wings, each organized around a trapezoidal courtyard. Patient rooms and treatment rooms are arranged on the outside, while the access to the floors is on the inside as a circular path around the atrium-like courtyards. This allows an endless path without the compulsion to stop or turn back – dead ends and cul-de-sacs can be threatening to disoriented or mentally ill people. The floor-to-ceiling glass panes allow views of the opposite side and the other levels. For the patients, this is an ever-changing insight into the inner world of the house, similar to the view from the window to a street. The nurses, in turn, are able to quickly overview the corridors of the entire ward.
The posts of the large-scale glazing as well as stairs, handrails and fixtures are made of light ash, the floor consists of a light grey sanded screed, otherwise the colour white dominates. The bright, extremely tidy atmosphere is intended to calm down, convey openness, and avoid aggressive stimuli.
Braided bricks
A special feature of the building is the façade: huggenbergerfrieze were looking for a material that mediates between the traditional wooden shingles in the village and the lightly plastered buildings of the monastery. The solution is a specially developed light beige brick with slightly angled edges. The brick bond of a short and a long element creates a texture reminiscent of wickerwork. This mesh is visually connected at a distance from each storey by massive horizontal attics made of concrete bands and by "roll layers" made of the same bricks that are staggered here. The structure emphasizes the horizontal. Although this is formally rather atypical for the place and for the historic monastery complex, the multi-angled floor plan and the restrained height mean that the building fits well into the context. The brick texture and parapet were prefabricated as "panels" and assembled on site as large components. The necessary stability between the brick filling, which was initially conventionally bricked, and the belt elements made of concrete is provided by steel reinforcements that run through the hole provided for this purpose in the brick.
The façade system is also the basis for another construction-specific solution. The planners wanted to enable patients to open windows without the floor-to-ceiling security that would then be necessary acting like a prison. In the patient rooms, there are therefore window sashes to the right and left of the fixed, almost floor-to-ceiling glazing that can be opened inwards. From the outside, these openings are secured by the curtain wall façade elements, which here consist of bricks built on gaps – the shorter stones in the bond were omitted from this "grid". The reinforcing bars inside the structure ensure that no stone can be knocked out of the bond.
[Source: www.db-bauzeitung.de] (https://www.db-bauzeitung.de/db-themen/db-archiv/geschlossene-offenheit/)
Photos: Beat Bühler
