Farrow Partners and Rubinstein Ofer Win Competition for Negev Health City
A hospital in a garden and a garden in a hospital.
Farrow Partners and Rubinstein Ofer have just been selected to design the first brand new medical centre in Israel in more than thirty years. The Negev Health City is also one of the largest new greenfield hospitals in the world, outside the United States, at 300,000 m2 (3 million sqft) and 1,900 beds, more than any other hospital in the country.
The estimated cost of construction is NIS 4.3 billion (US$1.2 billion, Euros 1.2 billion), including planning and the equipment costs. The first portion of the medical centre will open in 2031.
Hospitals are the largest consumers of water, by double, of any building type. The design will harvests select portions of the hospitals waste water, recycle and treat it for use in creating the largest new public horticultural park in the country, focused on semi-desert plants.
Render of the horticultural park running through the centre of the Negev Health City
Canadian architects Farrow Partners and Jerusalem-based Rubinstein Ofer, as well as teams from three of Israel’s leading firms, were hired to develop initial concepts for the master plan to be present to the leaders of Be’er Sheva municipality, Ministry of Health, the Meuhedet and Leumit health funds, and Sheba Medical Centre in Tel Aviv. Each firm presented their planning for the new campus, followed by questions. The jury caucused, and shortly thereafter, announced their selection of Farrow Partners and Rubinstein Ofer to proceed with the design of the new Sheba Negev Medical Centre.
Tye Farrow, Founding Partner, Farrow Partners, says “the new Negev Health City has been designed specifically to enhance salutogenic health – design that actively incites health, thereby not only making a significant contribution to health of those that use the medical centre, but also the wider community. A place for medical staff, and patients, as well as a place to go for the surrounding city; stroll on the weekends, enjoy a concert, recreation and exercise, and wider community activities, as a result of creating the new medical centre. A design using waste to create a new horticultural desert garden; to cause health.”