Mingxin Rehabilitation Center-Architects-FEI Architects,FEI Arts

Village cottage like ward

The purpose of the rehabilitation centre is to rehabilitate disabled persons with physical or mental functional impairments and restore their ability to live and work to the maximum extent. Generally speaking, the patients and families treated here are somewhat pessimistic. In the design, we are committed to removing the common coldness of hospitals and creating a warm, harmonious and interesting rehabilitation community, where patients and their families are like villagers living together. By building a bridge of communication and mutual assistance for every villager, we hope that they can rekindle their confidence in life while staying here and recover soon.

Red brick facade symbolizing cells

Located in Tianhe District, Guangzhou, China, Mingxin Rehabilitation Center is a renovation project consisting of the first floor and the 7th to 13th floors of a 25-storey office building, with an area of about 3,389 square meters. The nurse station is the core of the ward area, and we designed it as a small service station like the village hall, greeting people with service, warmth and pleasant attitude.

The nurse station that looks like the village committee office

The color temperature of the whole lighting system is 3000K, which creates comfortable and pleasant atmosphere that makes one feel at home. The design is people-oriented in many details. For example, the visitor chair in the ward has a vertical design and can be folded against the wall while not in use to save space; the bedside cabinet in the ward is a multi-functional cabinet which integrates multimedia TV, storage, bed sofa and so on, saving space and management costs; an infusion bottle hook is arranged in the toilet, allowing the patient in infusion to use the toilet without caregiver's assistance. It is composed of lobby, consulting room, ward area, treatment area, office area, inspection area, medicine storehouse and disinfection equipment area, etc. The main materials are plastic floor, terrazzo brick, artificial stone, carbon crystal plate, green coating, lime granite, rammed-earth like coating, red brick, aluminum alloy and so on.

People-oriented ward design

Space-saving visitor chairs in the ward

VIP ward

Bathroom with human design

In the design of this project, we are committed to removing the coldness commonly felt in hospitals by creating a warm, harmonious and interesting rehabilitation community, which allows patients and their families to live together like villagers. We build a bridge of communication and mutual assistance for every villager, hoping that they can rekindle their confidence in life here and recover soon. The elevators and public walkways are utilized to create leisure space. It is like a street park with street lights, benches, bicycles, grocery stores and parking lot (for wheelchairs), for people to relax, stay around and talk with each other.

Street garden like elevator hall

The rehabilitation area is full of equipments and the cold machines make people feel resistant. Therefore we design it as a playground: The passaeway for walking practice is a colorful runway of the stadium, with encouraging slogans at intervals; The specially shaped colorful LED rooflight is like fireworks blooming for every effort you make; The merry-go-round would also make you smile.

The rehabilitation area that looks like an amusement park

The contribution of this project lies in the new concepts and ideas it brings to the client and the design industry, i.e., designing a hospital with the method of community building, and bringing intimate and positive situational experience to patients and their families as well as doctors and nurses. When considering the size of facade and ceiling, we make full use of the specifications of the original plate to minimize the use of materials. With the decoration cost of 2000 yuan per square meter, it provides the industry with a cost-effective examplar of material selection and scale strategy.