Nursing Home in Nový Bydžov: Redefining Elderly Housing

Project Framework

The project, the Nursing Home in Nový Bydžov, is based on a simple program: the creation of a care facility on the site of a former orchard next to a hospital. However, instead of the conventional large institutional model, the buildings is divided into four relatively independent residential units, accommodating a limited number of residents, within a barrier-free environment.

Reading the Context

The site is surrounded by elements carrying strong symbolic meaning: a cemetery, a church, a historic urban fabric, and existing trees. Despite the traditional associations of these elements, they can be understood here as part of a calm peripheral urban landscape, enhancing a sense of serenity rather than gloom.

Architectural Organization

The spatial layout is based on a clear symmetry with internal courtyards and gardens, allowing natural light to enter and providing multiple visual orientations. This configuration balances a classical architecture character with the requirements of everyday use.

Aging as a Design Issue

The project reflects a broader European discussion on aging: how to create an environment that combines care and independence, offering a quieter and more dignified living experience at this stage of life. This theme is explored in various research initiatives on elderly care environments.

Redefining Aging

At the beginning of the design process, a fundamental question was raised: what kind of aging can be experienced, and how can the concept of “home” be translated architecturally? The idea was not to treat aging as a phase of decline, but as a condition that can remain active and complete, and perhaps even more calm and balanced.

Aging as a Phase of Awareness and Reflection

In this view, aging is not understood as a burden, but as a broader space for thinking and re-evaluating life experience. With advancing age, individuals gain time for reflection and the ability to view their lives from a more comprehensive perspective. From a spiritual standpoint, this stage may be seen by some as a form of release or final acceptance of life’s trajectory.

Changing Society’s Perception

This approach rejects the notion of older adults as a marginal group in need of care alone. Instead, they are regarded as individuals with experience and value that can be transmitted to younger generations. In this context, aging can embody meanings such as wisdom and tranquility, and a slowing down of the general pace of life, something modern fast-moving societies may actually require.

Aging as an Extension of Life

This stage is not seen as a rupture, but as a natural continuation of the life cycle, with clear parallels to childhood in terms of the need for care, clarity, and rediscovery of the world. In this sense, aging becomes a mirror that reflects the beginning of the journey as much as it expresses its end. The construction approach here supports this philosophy through careful spatial planning.

The Site as a Threshold Between Nature and City

The concept of the Nursing Home in Nový Bydžov is based on a site characterized by a clear contrast between the symbolic calm of its surroundings and the nearby urban elements. Originally, the site was an orchard adjacent to a hospital, while on the opposite side a street separates it from a cemetery that includes a church, as well as historic brick buildings that form the visual gateway to the town. Despite this calm character, the street remains an active element that introduces continuous daily movement, cars, pedestrians, and strollers, creating a balance between stillness and everyday life. Similar ideas are explored in other cities projects as well.

Reading the Landscape

The overall landscape is defined by a flat, open character dominated by fields and forests stretching across the Central Bohemian region. This calm visual extension forms the project’s background, where the horizon is shaped by the lines of villages and their dispersed silhouettes. Adjacent elements such as the cemetery, the church, and brick walls add a clear symbolic layer, reinforced by large trees and a church tower rising as a vertical marker within a wide horizontal scene.

Architectural Composition

The scale of the site allowed for the development of a low-rise building that is easily accessible and navigable. The configuration takes the form of a single-story structure organized around a layout close to four residential units connected by a central core. The organization follows an orthogonal arrangement aligned with the cardinal directions, giving the building clarity of orientation within the open site while maintaining simplicity of internal circulation. For more details on material specifications, refer to the Material Datasheets.

Organizational Concept

This configuration can be understood as a direct response to the nature of the site: a calm horizontal mass that engages with the natural landscape rather than resisting it, reorganizing it into a simple and legible form that harmonizes with its surroundings without imposing a strong visual presence. The integration of Building Materials plays a key role in achieving this subtle effect. Additional references can be found in the Archive and through ongoing Architectural News.

Overall Spatial Organization

The architecture solution is based on dividing the overall mass into four independent residential units, together accommodating approximately sixty residents. Each unit operates in a semi-self-sufficient manner, with a capacity of around fifteen residents in addition to supporting staff, allowing flexible operation and reducing reliance on long shared corridors.

The Inner Courtyard as an Organizational Core

Instead of conventional linear corridors, rooms are organized around a shared internal courtyard within each unit. This arrangement creates a more cohesive composition, where movement circulates around a central void rather than extending through enclosed horizontal passages. Each unit also contains its own services, including technical rooms, storage, and staff facilities, in addition to a shared space directly connected to the internal courtyard and garden.

Light and Connection to Nature

The inner courtyard plays a key role in bringing natural light into the corridors, reducing the sense of enclosure within the interior spaces. Most rooms are also equipped with small balconies that provide direct contact with the external environment. Furthermore, each unit is linked to a private internal garden, with access to a shared garden connecting all units, reinforcing the sense of continuity between interior and exterior.

Central Core and Circulation Distribution

The four units are connected by a central core that forms the primary organizational point of the buildings. From the southern entrance, visitors enter a spacious lobby that opens directly onto an oval-shaped central courtyard, where the reception desk is located and where distribution to the different units begins. Around this lobby, a waiting area is arranged with a direct visual connection to the central space, enhancing the sense of openness and clarity of orientation.

The Experience of Movement Within the Building

As a single-story structure, horizontal circulation becomes a fundamental part of the architectural experience. Movement between spaces takes place through naturally lit paths, where walking through the building becomes an experience defined by light and spatial continuity rather than merely a functional act of transition. For more details on material specifications, refer to the Material Datasheets.

Brick as an Architectural Language

The brick façades are based on a visual metaphor associated with the cemetery walls in the surrounding context. However, this solid mass is visually broken down through a regular rhythm of French windows, each providing direct access from the rooms to an exterior balcony. Within this framework, the windows are not treated purely as functional elements, but as symbolic openings that soften the rigidity of the wall and redefine its relationship with the interior. The choice of Building Materials plays a crucial role in achieving this effect.

Façade Variation Across Units

Variation in shading elements is used to emphasize the autonomy of each residential unit within the building. Each unit features a distinct façade treatment reflecting its position and orientation: • In some units, simple metal or steel elements appear at cornice level • In others, angled elements suggest a relationship with roof forms • While other façades remain more restrained and minimal in less sun-exposed areas. This diversity is not intended as decoration, but as a means of creating a clear visual differentiation between “houses” within a single building. Similar concepts are explored in other projects as well.

Reflection of Exterior into Interior

This principle extends into the interior spaces as well, where façade patterns are echoed in secondary reception areas and in certain configurations within shared bathrooms. In this way, each unit acquires its own identity without breaking the overall unity of the building. Interior materials are based on brick combined with white finishes that enhance the sense of light and reduce the visual density of the material. The integration of interior design principles is evident throughout.

Floors as a Wayfinding Element

A further layer of meaning is introduced through flooring design, where images of local plants and grasses are translated into embedded floor patterns along internal circulation paths. This approach gives the building both a navigational and visual dimension, while creating an indirect connection to the surrounding nature.

Naming of the Units

Based on this concept, each unit is given a name inspired by nature, such as grass, chamomile, or dandelion. These names are not decorative, but part of an attempt to create a distinct identity for each “home” within the overall composition. These patterns extend all the way to the room entrances, where flooring becomes a visual element that completes the interior experience and ties it to the project’s broader natural theme. Additional references can be found in the Archive and through ongoing Architectural News.

A Process Based on Collaboration

The execution of the Nursing Home in Nový Bydžov resulted from an approach that goes beyond conventional standards of project management, where the client, the Municipality of Nový Bydžov, played a key role in supporting the concept and allowing space for experimentation and development. The project was not the outcome of a unilateral decision, but rather the product of continuous collaboration among all parties, characterized by the exchange of perspectives and a willingness to reconsider certain solutions during implementation. This collaborative approach is documented in various research initiatives on participatory design.

Design Flexibility During Execution

Throughout the construction phases, certain elements were modified compared to the original design, reflecting the interactive nature of the relationship between design and realization. This adaptability contributed to improving specific details in response to real-world construction conditions. Project engineers also played an important role as technical partners throughout the development process, providing continuous oversight and patient engagement with various challenges.

The Role of Execution in the Final Quality

In the final stage, the contractor had a decisive impact on the quality of the buildings, through attention to detail and a deep understanding of the project’s nature. This level of care helped transform the architectural concept into a coherent physical outcome that reflects the collaboration of all involved parties. For more information on material specifications, refer to the Material Datasheets.

✦ ArchUp Editorial Insight

The Nursing Home project in Nový Bydžov appears as a direct response to demographic pressure linked to an aging population in Central Europe, within an institutional framework that connects healthcare policies with the requirement to locate elderly care services near existing medical infrastructure. The primary driver is not an architectural decision but a governmental risk-management model based on the repurposing of former orchard land and its integration into long-term care standards. Regulatory frictions emerge through requirements for universal accessibility, restrictions on low-rise building heights, and spatial negotiation with an adjacent cemetery, a historic urban fabric, and active traffic flow. Similar challenges are explored in other cities projects as well.

As a result, a functional distribution is produced based on four semi-independent units organized around internal courtyards, reducing institutional density in favor of operational efficiency. The building becomes a layer of mediation between care logistics and site constraints, where architectural intent is replaced by the logic of procurement systems and population management. The integration of Building Materials plays a key role in achieving this balance. Additional references can be found in the Archive and through ongoing Architectural News. The spatial organization also reflects principles discussed in architecture forums and projects focused on elderly care facilities.