Columbia Asia Medical Centre by Environmental Design Practice

The Columbia Asia Medical Centre designed by Environmental Design Practice Sdn Bhd is located in Nusajaya, Malaysia. The brief asked for a hospital that does not look like a typical hospital. It should exude confidence in users as a place of science and precision in healthcare facilities. The owner commissioned Environmental Design Practice Sdn. Bhd. to provide the prototype design of their 82-bedded community hospital. This hospital is the second built using the same prototype.

Unlike most of the conventional local hospitals that try to create a vernacular or tropical architectural language, this hospital makes no attempt to follow the old paradigm hospital design in the region. It uses curtain wall to maximise natural daylight. Visually pleasing in proportion, the cladding used was a bright silver composite aluminium panels and blue tinted glass to give a modern curtain wall look with a clean sleek image. This functional high-tech appearance aims to impart a sense of confidence in the healing technology. Since the structural element employed was relatively simple, the architect derived elegance of the building from the intricate language of detailing work.