The projects for the development and construction of the three state-of-the-art new hospitals in Komotini, Thessaloniki, and Sparta as part of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation's (SNF) Global Health Initiative (GHI), continue to attract the interest of the international community and are the focus of discussions at major conferences. In recent months, representatives from SNF, the Greek public sector, and the Project Design Team have been invited to participate in three conferences in Greece and abroad, where they have presented the vision and design principles of the hospitals and discussed, in an international setting, the pioneering architectural, health, and environmental design aspects of the projects, as well as public-private partnerships.
On June 10-12, 2024, the European Healthcare Design Congress 2024 was held at the Royal College of Physicians in London. On the second day of the conference, Panos Papoulias, SNF Chief Operating Officer, and Elianna Konialis, SNF GHI Director, along with Greece's Deputy Minister of Health, Marios Themistocleous, and Mark Carroll & Raffaella Parodi, architects from Renzo Piano Building Workshop (RPBW), which is spearheading the design of the three hospitals, participated on a discussion entitled “A different kind of public-private partnership in the health sector.” The panel discussed the vision behind the Foundation’s GHI and the dynamic role of philanthropic foundations in future health sector projects. At the same time, emphasis was placed on the development process of the three SNF hospitals, the mutual commitments that have shaped the public-private partnership framework, and the active role of the community in the design and development of the projects. The main architectural and design innovations resulting from the human-centric vision shared by Renzo Piano and SNF were also presented.
A few days earlier, on June 3–7, CleanMed Europe, the continent’s leading conference on sustainable health care, took place online. During a specialist session entitled “Designing the green hospital of the future,” SNF and the Project Design Team presented the development of the three new SNF hospitals, which emphasize sustainable design, the therapeutic role of nature, and zero-carbon readiness during operation of the hospitals. The panel featured Konstantin Kastrissianakis, SNF Technical Grants Officer; Moritz Spellenberg, from the British firm Llewelyn Davies, which specializes in health care design consulting; Οlaf de Nooyer, RPWB architect; and landscape architect Helli Pangalou, from H. PANGALOU AND ASSOCIATES.
Lastly, RPBW representatives had the opportunity at the end of May to present the main design principles of the three new SNF hospitals at the Éso Interior Design & Architecture Conference. The conference was held for the 12th consecutive year at the Athens Concert Hall, where Olaf de Nooyer and Olga Tourlomousi from RPBW presented the three projects. At the same time, in the context of RPBW’s long-term partnership with SNF, they also discussed the construction project of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Cultural Center (SNFCC).
The development of the three new state-of-the-art public SNF Hospitals in Thessaloniki, Komotini, and Sparta reflects a vision shared between SNF and internationally renowned architect Renzo Piano to create model hospitals for the future, which will be based on an intrinsically human-centric approach and will incorporate innovative environmental standards.
The grant for the design, construction and outfitting of the three SNF Hospitals is part of SNF’s Global Health Initiative (GHI), which is exclusively supported by SNF with a total budget exceeding $1 billion.