Third place in the everyday life of patients and parents: A cancer counselling centre and family house for children and parents at De Baan in Rotterdam

Third place in the everyday life of patients and parents: A cancer counselling centre and family house for children and parents at De Baan in Rotterdam

Van den Elst, M.

Schreurs, E.P.N. (mentor)
Stuhlmacher, M.E. (mentor)

Architecture and The Built Environment

Interior

2015-01-30

The project assignment of the studio is to design a non-hospitalized health care institution on one of the various given sites in Rotterdam. The studio believes that buildings for healthcare are amongst the most urgent design tasks for an architect. For patients, the interior of a care institution becomes a replacement of the whole outside world. Therefore, the focus of the studio is to give priority to the experience and quality of space, above the technical, organizational and financial issues The program of my choice is a cancer counselling centre for children combined with a Ronald McDonald house. The cancer counselling centre is a place where children can forget that they are sick but also can get support when they need it. It is (besides their home and the hospital) a third place in their daily lives. For the parents it is ideal to combine the counselling centre with a Ronald McDonald house. When their own home is too far from the hospital the Ronald McDonald house offers the solution. De Baan is located in the city centre and I’ve chosen this site because of the urban context and its easy accessibility. Besides that, the Erasmus Medical Centre is very close and the area contains several schools. Partly due to the location I choose to design the cancer counselling centre specially for children. The program of the building and the location fit well together although it also raises questions. Most of these questions are about the privacy of the patients and how the urban context can contribute to the wellbeing of the patients. The design is a well-functioning care centre that meets the desires of the different user groups. It provides the neighbourhood with commercial spaces and sport facilities, the patients of the Erasmus Medical Centre with a place for children with cancer to get support and it provides a home for their family members.

care centre

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Student theses

master thesis

(c) 2015 Van den Elst, M.