E73 – From Brief to Building: The Journey from Client Aspirations to Delivery in Switzerland, Denmark, and California

Hospitals are typically evaluated as machines for care: tightly regulated, risk‑averse, and optimized for clinical performance. In that context, architectural ambition is often treated as secondary. Yet the University Children’s Hospital in Zurich, which opened in 2025, has been recognized not only for supporting holistic patient care, but also for achieving the architectural quality we expect of our strongest civic institutions.

This session examines how such outcomes begin with a client vision that extends beyond the conventional brief and remains legible through design and delivery. Through three acute-care hospitals—the University Children’s Hospital in Switzerland, New North Zealand Hospital in Denmark, and UCSF Health Helen Diller Hospital in California—we will analyze what makes a client’s aspirational vision achievable: the priorities it sets, the trade-offs it accepts, and the governance structures that protect it under schedule, budget, and regulatory pressure. We will show how vision translates into concrete design principles—hospitals conceived as permeable “cities” with streets and courtyards; modular planning for flexibility; and material and daylight strategies that support warmth, dignity, and orientation in high-acuity environments.

Attendees will leave with takeaways for stewarding aspirational briefs, translating them into design principles, and sustaining those principles from concept through delivery.