Burwood Hospital : a landscape and land use study

Abstract

The following report is the result of a study of Burwood Hospital, Christchurch. The study concerned itself with the hospital buildings, the grounds in which they are situated, the landscape surrounding them and (in a necessarily more limited way) with the people whose activities are influenced by the hospital's existence. The basic aim of the study is to discover how best the hospital might develop in the future. More specifically, the objective is to ensure that the physical fabric of the hospital will have a form which is logically and satisfactorily related to its physical environment, as well as to the functions and activities it is designed to accommodate. To achieve this aim it is necessary to investigate and analyse the factors which have influenced the existing shape of the hospital and which will probably or preferably affect future development. Hence much of the study is concerned with collating information and estimating its significance for future planning; emphasis is put on relationships rather than facts, the assumption being that physical planning is based on the recognition and the expression of relationships, including, perhaps, some which do not yet exist when planning is begun.