Qilu Hospital of Shandong University Emergency Medical Building / MENG Achitects

Qilu Hospital of Shandong University is a comprehensive Grade A tertiary hospital under the supervision (administration) of the National Health Commission (NHC), and the leading party and main employer of the first national medical centers jointly established by the NHC and the provincial government.

Founded in 1890, the hospital is located in the Lixia historical conservation area of Jinan City. As an affiliated hospital and teaching hospital of Shandong University, it had long been bothered by the original planning layout that could no longer meet the current needs of medical treatment, teaching, scientific research, etc. In this context, the design of the Qilu Hospital of Shandong University Emergency Medical Building (the Project) was kicked off in 2020. The project is an 800-bed medical complex for medicine, teaching, and research, including functions of emergency medicine, diagnosis and treatment in internal medicine, imaging center, scientific research and teaching, medical laboratory, etc. The buildings are in a twin-tower layout, with the north tower for administration and scientific research, the south tower for medical treatment, the podiums for demonstrative teaching, canteen, emergency medicine, imaging, intensive care unit (ICU), operating room, etc., and the basement for garage and MEP rooms. Upon completion, the project is expected to further promote the integrated development of Qilu Hospital of Shandong University in medicine, teaching, and research, and set an example for building the national medical center. Due to a tight site area and complex terrain, the project has a high FAR and high density, which, coupled with the hospital renovation and expansion, caused many complications and conflicts. Therefore, how reconnecting the large hospital with the urban fabrics through design, creating a friendly and harmonious urban interface, and implanting the giant medical complex into urban public life, became a major difficulty and challenge in design. In this regard, the design team decided to always keep in mind the design goal, i.e. to create an open, efficient, and humanistic hospital in symbiosis with the city.

Hospital and city: symbiosis and balance - The project site, shaped like a notched triangle with the Baotuquan Campus of Shandong University on the south, and Baotu Spring Park and Quancheng Square on the north, is an important historical and cultural node of Jinan City. The 23,800 ㎡site, with a height difference of 6 m between the south and north sides, is subject to a building height limit of 60 m. Besides, the project in the spring area has limited excavation depth. Given the high FAR, low maximum building height, and shallow excavation depth, the project adopts a layout of two streamlined triangular towers following logic deduction and careful consideration, and a visual corridor is created between the two towers to ingeniously avoids visual interference to the existing inpatient buildings. The streamlined podium in a flexible, fluid, concise, and variable appearance highlights the sense of horizontal extension, portraying a unique image at the urban street corner. The partially raised F1 helps establish a friendly and natural spatial order and contributes to a more natural and harmonious relationship within the area by effectively alleviating the sense of suppression to people. In this way, the relationship between medical facilities and the city is well-balanced.

Functionality: treatment and efficiency - The Emergency Medical Building is a regional emergency center for pre-hospital first aid, in-hospital emergency treatment, emergency surgery, and intensive care units. Its immediate adjacency to Wenhua West Road ensures emergency access to ambulances. The rooftop helicopter apron is vertically connected with the emergency center, emergency treatment rooms, surgery center, ICU, and other departments for both land and air rescue. Thus, a fast, efficient, and comprehensive medical treatment system for emergency and severe diseases is established. Different from the previous practice of a “shared interventional treatment center”, the Interventional Center, with an intensive central island control room in the middle and digital subtraction angiography (DSA) operating rooms on both sides, ensures the medical staff can see all the ongoing operations in the cath labs from the central control room, where they can discuss with and support each other to ensure the patient safety. Such a design approach is cost-effective in both manpower and time, truly realizing what is called a sharing, intensive and efficient design. The inpatient department is on the upper floors of the medical technology podium, with elevators for direct access from both up- and down-stairs, hence a closer connection between the nursing unit, the medical technology department, and the emergency medicine department. The inpatient department provides convenient access to medical technology areas such as imaging centers and surgery areas, realizing shorter distances between, higher efficiency, and greater integrity of related functions. The design of double nursing units realizes relatively independent inpatient wards, enables the sharing of human and equipment resources, and ensures the ward layout by disease. Meanwhile, centralized elevators improve the space utilization ratio.

Circulation: order and integration - Leveraging the height difference on site, the project creates a double F1 arrival system. The emergency square is placed on the higher side of Wenhua West Road, facing the urban main road with high recognizability and convenient transportation, while on the lower side of Baotuquan South Road, an inner bay area in harmony with the building form is provided for picking up/dropping off taxi passengers. The clear organization and guidance of vehicular circulations enable not only a weather-proof traffic connection area for medical personnel, patients, visitors, etc. but also a buffer space for stop-and-go vehicles, thus relieving the urban traffic pressure in the surrounding area. The project embodies the “urban parlor” concept. As the circulation hub of the project, the “urban parlor” links up the traffic connection area on the same level, leads to all functional areas in the south and north, and seamlessly extends to the outpatient complex building, women and children’s building, cancer center and other buildings in the old hospital area via multiple sky corridors, ensuring the close connection between medical functions of both the new and old hospital areas. The building cluster of Guangzhi Institute, the earliest museum in China, Nanguan Church, and the library, etc. in the old hospital area are ideal places for medical staff and patients to relax, and the sky corridors have, to some extent, revitalized the cultural space of the hospital area.

Rehabilitation: air and sunlight - A vertical ecosystem is established to create a multi-dimensional rehabilitation space for both medical staff and patients. The sunlight garden between the south and north towers, and the two landscape courtyards inside the towers provide more green views for the patients and medical staff and exhibit a positive impact on relieving the pressure of medical staff and facilitating the recovery of patients, thus comprehensively improving the spatial quality and humanistic care of the hospital. The streamlined triangular floor plan maximizes the advantage of the orientation. The standard wards in the south tower are placed along the outer side of the triangle to face the south and northeast, and the medical staff offices are planned along the inner side of the triangle (courtyard) to ensure that patients, caregivers, and medical staff, etc. can all enjoy natural daylighting, open view, and positive spatial experience when receiving treatment, giving care and working. The north tower provides a shared exchange hall in the science and education area on each floor, which provides spaces for researchers to rest and relax, and effectively promotes the development of scientific research and technology in the hospital.

Summary - Qilu Hospital of Shandong University Emergency Medical Building, like two valleys in a low-profile and humble gesture, creates a garden for rehabilitation. In the future, the hospital, as a regional medical center, will inevitably undergo flexible and dynamic renovation inside along with the urban renewal and changes in population structure, and this new Emergency Medical Building, while meeting the needs for medical care, will integrate with urban public life with an open and harmonious posture.