Project: New Karolinska Solna University Hospital in Solna, Sweden

Most of Stockholm-based Tengbom Architects‘s current work features innovative elements. Like their three, 430,000-square-foot headquarters for different Swedish companies, which boast state-of-the-art Building Information Modeling (BIM), LEED certifications, and a strong environmental focus on furniture and materials.

“Massive projects often give an opportunity to be innovative and push the limits,” says Magnus Meyer, CEO.

Tengbom has 107 years of experience with large-scale projects, and is one of the biggest firms in Europe. Meyer says the size of the firm is directly related to the size of the commissions they feel comfortable taking on. “On large scale projects the complexity multiplies in several dimensions, and the amount of information is so big that architects and designers need to establish a systematic process to manage the design work,” he continues. “This is a big management challenge – side by side with a huge design challenge.”

For the 1.1-million-square-foot New Karolinska Solna University Hospital (NKS), their largest current project, 120 architects are working with hundreds of designers with various specialties like mechanics and electronics. To ensure timely completion, some 2,000 people have been on the site since it broke ground in 2010. When finished in 2016, this facility, located in between the cities of Stockholm and Solna, will be a mecca for high-tech scientific research, education and healthcare. It will also be a residence.

And NKS has been designed to meet three major environmental certifications: ISO 14001, LEED, and the Swedish “Miljöbyggnad.” If successful, NKS will be in a small group of hospitals to have any, much less all three, designations.