Iconic Awards 2024

Each year, the Iconic Award, organised by the German Design Council, honours pioneering architectural projects. This year, one of the projects to receive a ‘Winner’ award in the category ‘Architecture – Public/Culture/Education’ is Kao-Ho Hospital in Taiwan, designed by schneider+schumacher. This is the second prize the hospital building has won: in late April, it received an iF Design Award 2024 in the ‘Public Architecture’ category.

A transparent façade, an eight-storey atrium, and greenery in the form of a palm-planted garden: the hospital located in the harbour city of Kaohsiung in southern Taiwan consists of two parts, one for clinics, and another for offices. Between the two, an internal courtyard planted with palm trees offers views of plants from every floor. The clinic area wraps around a central atrium that extends from the ground floor to the eighth floor.

The building façade consists of U-profile screen-printed glass which, with the exception of the entrance area, completely envelops both parts of the building as well as the internal courtyard, thus it visually unites the two parts. At night, interior lighting behind the glass façade lights up the entire building.