ZMK Maaseik

The new ‘Hospital Maas & Kempen’ construction project combined all existing hospital activities of the Bree and Maaseik campuses at one easily accessible central site. ZMK (Ziekenhuis Maas & Kempen) is the first Flemish ‘extensive low-rise hospital in a green environment’: a unique building concept, with each building having a maximum of three floors. The new facilities provide 249 spacious rooms and optimal care for more than 85,000 residents in the northeast of Limburg.

ZMK entrusted the overall site and implementation coordination (including safety coordination-implementation) to a contractor partnership involving STRABAG Belgium and three other general contractors. The contract also included closed shell construction, finishing and environmental work. Each hospital building was based on a bespoke design to ensure that the hospital utilizes all the available space with maximum efficiency.

The intelligible hospital structure ensures that the various hospital functions are clearly distributed between the five building sections, making it a very public-friendly hospital. Each building section is easily expandable. Moreover, there is ample scope for the addition of future healthcare functions such as the creation of a new residential care centre at the same medical site. The new campus features an entrance, hotel, office, ‘hot floor’ and factory building with 226 underground parking spaces.

Each building was given an individual character based on natural materials, maximum daylight and clean lines. The complex was totally integrated into a green landscape which means that it is easy to immerse yourself in the natural environment at the site. The project incorporated several energy-related measures, including underground thermal energy storage, heat recovery from ventilation systems, rooftop solar thermal collectors, and the conversion of kitchen waste into biogas.