can i book a room please?

10 points if you correctly guess this building's purpose.













my guess was some kind of indoor holiday centre or water park.

incredibly, turns out it's a hospital in mestre, italy. designed by studio altieri spa and costing €200,840,705, construction work on this beauty, nuovo ospedale di mestre, was completed in january of this year. the hospital is home to 680 standard beds, 20 dialysis beds, 20 cribs and 16 operating theatres. now obviously these interior shots are just of the main entrance hall so i can't be sure how the actual wards and rooms compare in terms of design, but even so, what a positive way to welcome the public to a building which would usually cause panic and nausea purely due to its dull, predictable aesthetics. and that's all before you're told to sit in the waiting room for 3 hours with a 5 year old copy of autotrader to read.

much respect to the italians responsible. for more technical info, go here. photos from here.