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Jana Heidacker

Jana Heidacker, who is studying at The TU Darmstadt, Germany, was shortlisted in the Architects for Health's First Student Health Design Award (2007) for the following submission. For contact please email: gdg.heidacker@gmail.com

NIP|TUCK | Beauty has its price

Task | Building

In the context of the restructuring Ruhr-Metropolis, a new use shall be brought to the former Ewald colliery.

After the end of the colliery era there is a wide range of plans for re-structuring and reusing the Ruhr-Metropolis and specially its leftovers of industrial architecture.
One well known example is “Zeche Zollverein” with a masterplan by OMA, Rem Koolhaas.

Most of the colliery buildings were designed by the German architects Schupp & Kremmer.
Their architecture was strong, monumental, very clear and strictly functional. And the fact that the building have been built for machines –and not in human scale- makes them very impressive, in their time almost futuristic. Its over-dimension makes the buildings suitable for multiple use alterations without having to alter the specific external qualities of the facades.

Provocation | Use:

Considerations for relevant reuse of the Ewald colliery stood at the base of this project. While at first a “classical” health center was in focus, later on the theme became more specific and provocative.
In the critical discussion and study on health care and contemporary popular tendeces, a contradicting trend can be spotted. It seems that on one hand people (and politics) try to reduce investments on health care and on the other hand a big boom in plastic and esthetic surgery can be noticed.

The plastic and esthetic surgery topic is at the same time deterrent and attractive. The topic triggers emotions and initiates discussions.
We think of “implantation”, “correction”, “staging”...
Beauty is not just a result of our own genes anymore. Beauty is creatable and creatable beauty is chic.
Medical treatment of this kind is no longer just for our survival, it is not helping to overcome a sickness, it even can be a risc for the healthy body.

Design | Process:

The façade of the old colliery buildings with it’s gigantic monumental dimensions are preserved as an architectural monument. With a width and height around 23 meters and a length of more than 135 meters this “frame” offers more than 70.000m³ potantial space for beauty health care.
Next to the healt g and other...
Further more this given “spaceframe” allows a rich play with open flowing spaces, galleries and views.

The rigid hull of the old building is frame and base for the new infill. A sculptural architectural body is implanted in the existing hull.
The interpretation of the beauty cult and the human body stood as reference for the first designs of the internal shape. The beginning of the design process consisted of nude studies, which got more abstracted and were reduced to dynamic build bodies. These figures were translated to abstract sections and floor plans and again transformed to a sculptural body till it mutated into a suitable, functional and working architecture.

The Architects for Health
First Student Health Design Award
was sponsored by