Brinkåsen | Sjögren Arkitekter AB

The architecture and elegant layout of the new forensic psychiatric hospital in Vänersborg meet a range of functional challenges.

As you approach Brinkåsen in its clearing in the birch forest, the hospital’s circular layout is not immediately apparent. Instead, you glimpse rectangular shaped buildings, in different colors of coal-fired brick, and note how beautifully they interlock.

As you get closer, you are led naturally towards the main entrance of the tallest building on the site, which houses the reception and various offices. You pass the reception and continue on out the other side of the building before you are able to take in the circular shape and grasp just how simple, clever and dignified a solution it offers to a number of the functional problems faced by a psychiatric hospital. Nowhere do you see signs that you are in a treatment centre.
Sjögren Architects were commissioned to design the new hospital in Vänersborg in 2006. The hospital was to house 80 in-patients, half of whom are serving custodial sentences, so are not free to move around the hospital or leave it.

The architects’ close collaboration with the developer began with the drafting of the hospital program. Later, they planned and oversaw the project, selected materials and helped choose art for the hospital, which was completed in 2011.

The hospital is arranged in a manner designed to offer patients as beautiful and respectful an environment as possible. The idea was to establish a society within society, so that patients would be able to lead as normal a life as possible. The evidence shows that this approach helps patients recover more quickly and spend less time in hospital. This therapeutic concept is also supported by financial common sense.

The circular site surrounds an inner park, where a portion of the existing rocky terrain and vegetation have been preserved. Depending on their condition, patients may be allowed to move freely in the park. Fourteen structures of equal width but in different heights radiate out from the circle. These are linked by glass passageways, which provide the necessary demarcation from the outside world, avoiding the need for walls and barbed wire. Each has an atrium with trees, plants, tables and benches, so that all patients may leave their rooms and enjoy some fresh air without having to ask permission. Patients also have to go outdoors to get to classes, leisure activities, social gatherings, etc., which helps counteract any sense of institutionalization. All of the buildings have windows facing the rocks and the surrounding birch forest, through which wild animals roam close to the buildings.

The outside walls are clad in brick – inspired by the original neighboring red-brick psychiatric hospital, built in the early 1900s. To create variety in the new hospital and give the living quarters an individual look, the architects decided to clad them in different colors of brick. Six different bricks were selected – in shades of whitish-yellow, brown, red and dark grey. Thanks to its basic color and the coal-firing process, each brick involves a massive play on colors that encapsulates almost all of the other bricks’ shades.

Developer: Västfastigheter, Västra Götlandsregionen
Architect: Sjögren arktekter AB
Building contractor: PEAB
Landscape Architects: Algren & Bruun Landscape Architects