A look at the winning ideas for a Krakow lung cancer care center

The Krakow Oxygen Home competition draws attention to the ongoing public-health issue of air pollution that hovers over the bustling Polish city of Krakow — and the numerous cases of lung disease caused by it. Launched by competition organizers Bee Breeders (f.k.a. HMMD Competitions), the open competition sought the most innovative design ideas for a lung cancer care center. Entries had to focus on providing patients a space with psychological support as well as opportunities to socialize and cope with other patients.

The competition concluded with three winning entries and six honorable mentions. 

Scroll down to check out the top three winners and some jury commentary.

1ST PLACE: NIMA NIAN, BEHDAD HEYDARI | Iran

Jury commentary: "The selected first place project is characterized by schematic coherence, sensitive invention, and material resolution. The project employs the traditional typology of a courtyard as a comprehensive operative and organizational strategy. Contiguous circulation circumscribes a central court around which programmatic spaces are organized. Sub-courts, both internal and external segregate the program and establish boundaries between spaces. Placement of external courtyards correlates with suggested locations of trees existing within the park while internal courtyards surround proposed tree plantings.

The project effectively expands the performance of the courtyard typology across scales, mitigating public and private activity, inside and outside. Concentric organization and material definition establish a layered experience between park and cancer care center, public and patient. An opaque translucent glass billows around the exterior while transparent vision glazing surrounds the central interior courtyard. The consequence of which is an amorphous singularity, described by material subtlety, spatial nuance, and contextual sympathy."

2ND PLACE: PAUL JONES + CHRIS BROWN

Jury commentary: "The second place project is distinguished by sensible siting and materiality. The care center is situated along the street, between existing oncology center buildings. This placement establishes a street presence without obstructing the park. Spanning from street to park, a lattice roof structure unifies the activity and function of the building while mediating environmental conditions. Through the use of vegetation and a performative roof, the building negotiates private and public, light and shadow, views in and views out; selectively conciliating the environment and its users.

The interior spaces are designed with adequate flexibility for an ever changing program, allowing for the building to evolve as needs of the care center and users change. Through the development of a large roof datum, and reinforcement of the ground plane through planting, the project moderates a diversity of programs and users, while defining a sensitive, tactful environment."

3RD PLACE: CAMERON KOLLATH | United States

Jury commentary: "The success of this proposal lies in its simultaneous simplicity and whimsicality. The project’s linear plan organizes an enfilade among rooms along a central circulation axis of Bror Hansson Park, dividing the site in half. The south facade’s taut glass, framed in thin steel arches cascading down towards the Oncology Center, opposes the north facade’s heavy concrete wall imprinted with ornamental relief. This duality amplifies difference between passive seclusion to the north and active interaction to the south, both defining distinct landscape experiences.

Within the vaulted interior, the space is booleaned from a monolithic concrete mass, creating a series of niche-like monastic cells and more expansive public spaces facing the activated landscape. Plantings line the inside of the glass facade further blurring interior and exterior, public and private. Ultimately, the sensitivity and clarity of the linear plan wedged into the park, in combination with the playful allusion to traditional architectural typologies of the arcade, vault, and wall result in a proposal deftly imbricating the public and the intimate."

All images courtesy of Bee Breeders.

Click through the gallery below for more project images. You can find the Honorable Mentions here.