This hospital could be much better, the patient saw just before her death

Some claims pop up so often in promotional texts that no one believes them anymore. One of them: the patient is central. Would it?

And yet it is not always nonsense. Niels Geerts (29) graduated from the Amsterdam Academy of Architecture with a design that was inspired by the architectural thoughts of a patient in the last six months of her life. She was a colleague at the Architekten Cie, a renowned architectural firm. She too would have graduated from the Academy, were it not for the premature death of her.

In the last year of her life she went in and out of hospital, only to die at home in the Vondelstraat in Amsterdam. During walks with her family and friends in the Vondelpark, she thought about the rehabilitation center on the Overtoom, Reade, also at the park. She wondered what perspective can offer patients, hope. Her thoughts inspired Geerts. He designed a new care center on Reade’s site. Name: Whole house. He graduated cum laude from the Academy for that design. Geerts: „Together we are the architect, Boukje and I. Her thoughts were my architectural compass. She gave the impetus, I made the design.”

Boukje Bügel-Gabreëls (1969-2020)
Photo private collection

Who was this woman? Born Gabriels, she married Marnix Bügel. They had three children. In May 2019, she fell, in her own home. Just like that. She couldn’t get up anymore. The same day, doctors diagnosed two brain tumors. She passed away on May 9, 2020, at the age of fifty. In weekly magazine Elsevier an obituary was published under the heading ‘Intelligent designer of own dreams’.

Besides being intelligent, Boukje Bügel-Gabrëls was successful. After studying applied physics in Groningen, she started working as a management trainee at KPN. She soon became commercial director of Planet Internet before switching to NS in 2007. There she would be responsible for the introduction of the public transport chip card and the public transport bicycle.

She also contributed to the redesign of the train stations, which gave her the last push to take a completely different approach. Because why would she only supervise these kinds of processes? Couldn’t she design the shops and stations herself? What followed was a radical career break: from process supervisor to maker.

In 2015 she quit her job to retrain as an architect. Pi de Bruijn, known for his creations at the Zuidas and the House of Representatives, was impressed by such a decision, as were her energy, network and intelligence. He involved her with his Architekten Cie.

Stone patient factory

During her first admission to the VU hospital, Bügel-Gabrëls was already surprised how bad the living environment of patients is. At the VU she even ended up in a room with a very limited view of the sky, via a small strip, somewhere in one of the endless corridors of this stone patient factory in Buitenveldert. Now and then she was startled by the noise of an air ambulance flying to and fro.

Gradually, her thoughts about a better architecture for a care center took shape. She texted those thoughts to her friends, talked about them. Her best friend Winifred Andriessen: “She actually used all the energy she had left to think about an institution in which the patient’s well-being is the starting point.”

Geerts met her at the Architekten Cie. ‘Of course it didn’t turn out exactly the way she envisioned it. But the design is driven by the very question she constantly asked herself: you wake up and what happens? What do you want, as a patient? How can you draw hope from your environment?”

In?

What appears from the models, Geerts’ graduation thesis and his explanation of his graduation earlier this year, is that Boukje’s question leads to a completely different building than the one there is now. There is more wood, even for load-bearing structures. More curves, more water, air, trees and more shade. Geerts: “We let nature in.”

The model of Heelhuis, the design by architect Niels Geerts, inspired by the late Boukje Bügel-Gabrëls.
Photo Ernst van Raaphorst

With your back to the park

Isn’t that right now? “No, look, the current building has its back to the park where it is located. At the same time, it turns away from the city. Heelhuis does the opposite. Residents live closer to both, almost in them. They can choose, every day, because one seeks the tranquility of nature, the other the distraction of city life. In Heelhuis everyone is more resident, less patient. That is also what Boukje wanted.”

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Disappear will be the ungainly entrance, with a blocking ramp of an underground parking garage, which is now located between Overtoom and the care center. Catering and tenants with a neighborhood function will be located in the plinth. The brutal fences between the building and the park, at the back, also go away. The garden will continue into the park.

Against the trend of scaling up, the building will be able to accommodate fewer patients than it does now. But those patients also get something. Such as rooms with windows on both the park and the city side, with a round bed and an abundance of light. Geerts: “This design does not take efficiency as the basis for spatial solutions. The focus is on the patient’s point of view, as an autonomous resident of Heelhuis. Much attention has been paid to the operation and logistics, so that the plan offers a more realistic answer to the demand for better care. See the soft design language and the spacious transitional spaces and the smaller clusters, where patients, care providers, relatives and friends can meet.”

With both legs in practice

Is there a chance of realization? The current rehabilitation center is leaving: Reade moves to the OLVG site in Nieuw-West. So space will become available in Oud-West, at the location on the Overtoom. Madeleine Maaskant, director of the Academy of Architecture: “The design is very special and fits so well in that place that you can see it rising. Moreover: our students, and also Niels, have both feet in practice. Niels works at a renowned architectural firm. So he knows how to find his way, also in the governing bodies that are of decisive importance in this type of tender.”

The first weekend of November, visualizations and models of Heelhuis can be seen in the Academy of Architecture in Amsterdam, on the Graduation Show, an exhibition of recent graduation projects. Waterloo Square 211-213. www.bouwkunst.ahk.nl