The Center for Emergency and Intensive Care Medicine, ‘ZNI’ in abbreviation, of the Lucerne Cantonal Hospital in Switzerland, was to be added to the north side of the main building of the hospital center. Between the 1st basement and the 1st upper floor, the new building was to be connected to the existing building in the area of the existent bay window. The building construction services, storage and offices are located on the 1st basement floor. Emergency medicine is located on the ground floor level, intensive care medicine is located on the 1st and 2nd floor levels.

The location of the planned building led to the special requirement, which the new building construction was to fulfil. The hospital center is logistically accessed from the north. The main delivery area and the access road to the emergency room are located on the 2nd basement floor. On the 3rd basement level there is a smaller delivery area, and the entire waste disposal of the hospital center. Since neither deliveries nor the emergency room were to be re-located, the building was to be elevated above Floors -3 and -2. The operations and accessibility to the emergency room and deliveries was also to be guaranteed. The center for emergency and intensive care medicine comprised 4 floors. The 33-bed intensive care unit is located on the 1st and 2nd floors and is extendable to 42 beds. Until the final extension was completed, the anesthesia department was located on the 2nd Floor in addition to 11 intensive care beds and technical rooms. On the ground floor is the emergency ward – which includes a fast-track system of 25 beds as well as technical support and office roomspace. The main part of the offices, the storage and the technical center are located on the 1st Basement Level.

The different uses result in different floor plan layouts on the respective floors. The large 4-bed intensive care bunks require large, column-free rooms. Similar rooms are required in the 1st basement for the technical rooms. In between is the emergency room, which functions on a small scale. The floor plan layouts of the floors are therefore very different and thus require a high flexibility of the building.

The building stands on a pedestal, which will be visually perceptible. This is achieved by the coloring in the lowest façade band, which, together with the dark columns, visually supports the building. As a whole, the building will have a two-dimensional appearance. The window bands are complemented by glazed, opaque bands. The same properties of the (glass) surface create a uniformly slightly reflective building structure. Behind the glass band, the construction will become visible from the inside depending on the time of day, weather and lighting.