Hospice Vangen - terminal care centre
The basic architectural concept was to create a welcoming, protective building that facilitates family life, conversation, peace and contemplation for people in the final phase of their lives. As a building it must also provide maximum support for the necessary medical expertise and care. The overall impression must be subdued, accommodating and intimate.
Under a single, large, cohesive saddle roof, the new hospice will be shaped as a figure of eight - a butterfly - with soft angles around two inner courtyard areas. The large eaves of the roof will serve both as a cover for outdoor patios and seating and as a zone for conversation rooms, which will be positioned like boxes, semi-displaced out in the inner courtyard spaces. The horizontal lines of the eaves highlight the character of the building as a one-storey construction on a human scale, while the large roof indicates homeliness and tranquillity.
The façades of the building are made up of white, polished surfaces and timber-clad sections - interrupted by full-height glass sections, windows and doors. Trellises with plants, protective hedges and wooden seating plinths break up the façades in selected positions - particularly near the patios of the bedrooms.
The materials chosen for indoors are simple and consistent: for example, natural-coloured timber cladding on selected walls and ceilings in niches, creating cohesion with the exterior, timber-clad walls. Throughout the building, glazed sections provide transparency and separate outdoors from in – some covered either partly or entirely by screen prints.
In addition to 15 bedrooms, the building accommodates the palliative team of Aalborg University Hospital and the voluntary organisation.
Location
Aalborg, Denmark
Client
The North Denmark Region
Size
2.500 m²
Architect
FRIIS & MOLTKE Architects
Landscape architect
Green Sustainable Landscape
Engineer
Sweco
Contractor
Trigon A/S




