Renzo Piano's Forest Hospital Gets Paris Permit
The Renzo Piano Building Workshop, alongside Brunet Saunier & Associés, has received approval for a pioneering "urban forest hospital" project in the Paris region. The design blends cutting-edge healthcare with green architecture, representing a new model for sustainable institutional buildings. Foster + Partners have also revealed new renderings for Two World Trade Center in New York, with construction beginning this year.
The new Hôpital Universitaire Grand Paris Nord will be located in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, a northern suburb of Paris, on the site of a former PSA factory. It is a major state initiative designed to consolidate the activities of two aging hospitals, Hôpital Beaujon in Clichy and Hôpital Bichat in Paris. This new health campus is a key part of the broader Grand Paris Nord project, which includes a university component for 12,000 students from Université Paris Cité, focusing on medicine, dentistry, and nursing. The entire campus is planned for completion around 2030, with the university portion aiming for a 2029 opening. The "forest" design includes a 1.3-hectare rooftop garden and the planting of over 1,000 trees, providing patients and staff with direct access to green space. The facility will house 986 beds and 288 day-patient slots, and will employ a staff of more than 5,500 professionals. The project has faced some criticism for a planned reduction in the total number of beds compared to the combined capacity of the two hospitals it is replacing. In New York, construction on Foster + Partners' Two World Trade Center is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2026, finally completing the commercial portion of the World Trade Center campus almost 25 years after the 9/11 attacks. The tower's foundation was completed in 2013, but the project has been stalled for nearly 14 years. The 55-story skyscraper will rise 1,226 feet (373 meters) and serve as the new global headquarters for American Express, which will be the sole tenant. The design features a series of stepped, landscaped terraces and corner gardens, incorporating over an acre of outdoor green space. The project has a long design history, with Foster + Partners originally commissioned in 2005. The commission was briefly given to Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) in 2015 before returning to Foster + Partners in 2020 with a significantly revised plan. The fully electric, energy-efficient building is targeting LEED certification and is expected to be completed in 2031, housing up to 10,000 employees.
