There are buildings for all kinds of social resources but nothing specific for the research and supervision of new human life. At present this falls under regular hospitals though it has nothing at all to do with illness. Because of this, and in view of the increasing tendency to specialize and the working relationships among hospitals necessary to this, it is time to establish a building devoted exclusively to all the circumstances surrounding human birth.

The institute is projected at Sixhaven in Amsterdam northeast of Central Station across the waters of the IJ. It is a fantastic, conspicuous and well accessed location that is part of a recreational 'green wedge' driven into the centre of Amsterdam. This wedge continues below the building as an undulating landscape containing the institute's public services.

The traffic flows through the building are split into conception, pregnancy, birth and institute personnel. These flows are accommodated in tubes beginning at ground level. The tubes and the service levels constitute a freely subdivisible matrix serving as the building's structural basis. The routes lead directly to the various resources in the institute.

On the roof in an oasis of calm is the hotel with rooms and apartments individually fitted out for delivery and maternity care and visits from the nursing staff. The welfare of the client/patient is taken care of on the medical floor, where a configuration of treatment rooms, examination rooms and doctors' surgeries surround the client.

All non-client-related facilities are housed in the two service levels above and below the medical floor. These include the laboratories, pharmacies and the library as well as space for parking. These two levels make it possible to restrict the number of structural columns on the medical floor in-between to eight, leaving a freely subdivisible floor plan. Armed with his configuration, the building can transform and mutate to accommodate all internal developments resulting from advances in scientific knowledge.

Place of education: Amsterdam Academy of Architecture
Specialization: architecture
Tutors: Herman Hertzberger, Yushi Uehara, Jan Richard Kikkert