The new Nord Franche-Comté hospital in eastern France combines the hospitals of Belfort and Montbéliard; it sits mid-way between the two towns on a sloping, 25 hectare site outside the village of Trévenans. The hospital is positioned at the top of the site, its slender volume stretching 210 m in length, 98 m deep, following the contour lines. It takes advantage of the ground’s natural slope to separate traffic flow (A&E access on the upper level, public entrance at the lower level) and to provide the wards with distant views over the landscape, as far as the Vosges forests.

The project married two ambitions: that of creating a “treatment machine”, rational and capable of evolving, and a living space founded on a concern for the wellbeing of both patients and staff. Consequently, the reassuring presence of wood is found both in the facade (protected behind a ventilated glazed void), and in the internal spaces, in particular in the hall-circulation punctuated with atriums that open up to embrace internal courtyards, blurring the boundaries between the interior and exterior.