The new Felettino Hospital in La Spezia will replace the existing facility and consolidate services from the San Gabriele Hospital, enabling the redevelopment of its historic city centre site. Serving western Liguria and northern Tuscany, the new general hospital will provide 520 inpatient beds and accommodate around 900 daily outpatients.

Located on a south-facing site with views towards the sea, the building adopts a fan-shaped plan, maximising both daylight and vistas. Designed around Italy’s ‘intensity of care’ principle, the scheme reduces overall bed numbers in favour of enhanced day care facilities, flexible ward layouts, and a mix of mostly two-bed rooms with 10% single rooms. Additional functions include emergency services, a congress centre and a restaurant

A large central atrium acts as a covered public piazza with cafés and shops, from which visitors access upper floors via external lift cores and waiting areas, maintaining orientation throughout. Two planted courtyards flank the atrium, strengthening the connection between building and landscape.

The eight-storey hospital is horizontally zoned: the lower two floors house public and outpatient services; the next three contain treatment areas and laboratories; the upper three accommodate inpatient wards. Sustainable technologies include a 200kWp photovoltaic system, heat pumps and advanced heat recovery.