Healing wings: Articulated by a responsive plan and subtle tectonic gestures, this new local hospital in Graz tames and humanizes a complex programme.

The new Graz West Regional Hospital occupies flat land close to the western boundary of the city, growing up next door to the uninspiring Accident Hospital built in the 1970s. It enjoys good views of the hills to the west, but the local context is grimly suburban, with the usual extensive car parks. In basic concept it is quite similar to Kada's recent hospital at Hartberg (p50), in that most of its accommodation is disposed in a series of linear wings (each two rooms and a corridor wide), articulating different functions at various levels in different wings. But it is a larger and more complicated building than Kada's: taller, and with more wings.

To understand the plans, it is easiest to start at the top and work down, as this establishes the basic geometry and column grid before the variations start to occur. Third and fourth floors are almost identical. They consist of two aligned south-west facing ward wings linked by a central glazed access hall. The four-bed rooms occupy the side with light and view, while shallower rooms containing services and nursing stations are opposite, facing north-east, as with Kada's ward wings. At this level you already see the roofs of the other wings: a further ward wing up to second floor projecting on the south, two parallel treatment wings to north. The roofs of the latter carry service floors treated sculpturally as separate pods with canted ends and a different cladding. These contain all the air-handling equipment and the distribution ducts: no need for windows, every excuse to be roof-like. Dropping to second floor finds the third ward wing in place, south-east facing with balconies. These show a touch of luxur y as the rooms are Sonderklasse, in other words dedicated to people who pay or are on private insurance schemes. There are only two beds per room rather than four, but the allotted space is not vastly increased, and it is to the credit of the architects that the privilege of this wing is not made more obvious. The glazed hall linking the higher wings has now become L-shaped and includes a small cafeteria. Down another level, and the two medical treatment wings start: the outer northern one contains the main operating theatres and associated functions, the inner one intensive care. A band of rooms opposite is the surgical administration and the western ward wing has become the patient preparation area. Despite the size of the complex, central circulation remains relatively short and clear. Skewed walls in the connections to the treatment wings consistently indicate the major direction, so from the shape of the space you know which way to go.

Real complications start at ground floor, with two skewed routes played off against the column grid. The main pedestrian entrance arrives from the front of the Accident Hospital at higher level and to north-east. It is brought straight through on a stair and a long ramp to terminate next to the lift and main stair. The other main entrance is nearby, its lobby skewed to the line of a street beyond to north, which is also followed by the ramp up from the basement parking. Where the two routes intersect is the main stair, set inside its own glass cage but still fully visible, rising right up the centre of the building. On the south side, a row of doors leads out to the southern garden space embraced by the right-angle of ward wings. A long curved wall swings in to meet the entrance, almost seeming to continue the line of the ramp opposite across the hall. As formal devices, these diagonals and curves, indeed the whole linearity, is familiar from the Domenig oeuvre and highly fashionable today. But more important than the sheer visual effect is the meaning. Allowed some independence, the building's routes start to show their own logic and significance: they are not just made mutely subordinate to the Cartesian grid as in the '60s and '70s. It does not make much difference in terms of distances walked or corners turned; but it does individualize the circulation spaces and allow directions to be read. It also creates a contrast between static enclosures -- normal boxy rooms -- and the dynamic in-between spaces of entry, foyer, stair, and general circulation spaces on the way to somewhere else.

The medical treatment wings continue in a similar vein as the floors above. Beneath operating theatres are laboratories and endoscopy, beneath intensive care the X-ray department. But the ward wings give way to other functions: east is taken over by day clinics, south by general administration and -- as with Kada's hospital -- a small chapel. Most importantly, the west wing becomes the site for the staff cafeteria, visible through glass, and it becomes public further down, fed by the same kitchens. Thus once again, hospitality is a main theme of the entrance and foyer, and visitors know immediately where they can get refreshment. It gives a place for a pause, where it is possible to sit and chat over a visit, to await the outcome of emergency intervention on a loved one, or to find the strength to face up to bad news.

The basement, unsurprisingly, is mainly services and car parks, but digging out two courtyards in the medical treatment area has allowed daylight into the kitchens, pharmacy and workshop. There is also an extensive staff changing area, a reminder of the huge numbers of carers who must daily make the transition from private citizen to soldier in the battle against disease.

The substance of the building is in-situ concrete, in the form of columns and slabs. Daringly, the western ward wing is carried not on the normal vertical pilotis but on V-shaped columns canted In different directions on the two sides. Obviously this helps with structural stability in an area which is effectively two storeys high without structural partitions, but rhetorically also it helps free up the space with arrival ramp and cafeteria, making them larger in scale, more dynamic. On the south side, the facade is held back behind the V-columns, showing without ambiguity that they carry the three horizontal floors above.

Given that this is a vocabulary of skeleton and cladding, there are different kinds of cladding vocabulary for the different parts. Pure glass constructions help differentiate circulation areas from more permanently closed rooms, and different kinds of glass are used, some curved and some translucent. On the ward wings facing the sun, horizontal metal visors project out, layering the facade. Changes in building vocabulary make tectonic sense and help further to articulate the kind of place-making gestures already discussed in relation to the plans. We shall have to wait until this large complex is complete and fully operational to judge its final success, but the impression so far is that Domenig and Eisenkock have once again managed to tame and make coherent an extremely complex programme, and their architectural rhetoric, while being attractive in itself, is most effective in serving this end. The deployment of the programme into a number of narrow wings with glazed connections, as with Kada's hospital, al lows for good orientation and almost constant daylight and view.