The innovative adaptive reuse project transformed a pre-existing office building into a modern medical facility.
Studio Gad spearheaded the interior design in collaboration with the architectural firm Shauer Architects. Together, they created an original aesthetic language that manifests a boutique hospitality-oriented experience that calms and soothes patients undergoing treatments and offers a comfortable experience for visiting family and friends.
The approach was based around the human need to mitigate stress and nervousness while entering a hospital, exemplifying how aesthetics can play an essential role in the medical treatment, healing and recovery process.
Within the entrance sits a contemporary art gallery featuring revolving art exhibitions by Israeli artists, coinciding with the concept that injects culture within the world of medicine. Curated by Sharon Tuval, the first exhibition at Raphael Private Hospital presents original video artworks by the French-Israeli visual artist Michal Platnik. The studio also designed and constructed iron and brass installations as three-dimensional side paneling, with atypical lighting constructions embedded into the walls themselves.
When creating original interior design schemes for the hospital, the team considered the patient's visit and sensory experience and how each space would be unconsciously internalised. The studio embraced and prioritised the effects of the five human senses as a focal point of the experience, similar to that in designing a hotel and private spaces, including sight, by creating a visual language that is clear and coherent throughout the project's areas while designing lighting fixtures that evolve and dim throughout the day.
Then with sound, by focusing upon acoustics of the hospital, a factor of critical importance to produce a calming and quiet atmosphere for patients. Next was smell, so a custom made scent travels through the ventilation systems and offers patients a relaxed atmosphere similar to that of boutique hotels, while also eliminating unpleasant odours that might be more associated with the medical world. Then with taste, so a lobby-side bakery and restaurant that’s accessible to both the patients, family and friends to enjoy passing the time in, and that is a stylish space reminiscent of a hotel.
And finally, touch, so each of the hospital’s waiting lounges and common areas are adorned in plush upholstered furniture and fashioned alongside natural oak partitions, making the spaces feel extremely tactile, comfortable and luxurious at the same time.
The application of customised lighting fixtures with schemes that evolve during the day and are controlled by the patient or medical staff in each of the private recovery rooms further attest to an elevated hospital stay that contributes to each patient’s recovery.