Presentation

1) The H-Wing

The H wing, with its front wall directed at the "rue aux Laines", would have 11 levels, with 8 floors and 2 basements.
-The second basement would include the mortuary, cellars and machine rooms for the elevator and the goods lifts.
- The first basement would include the auditorium, the museum-library, service spaces and changing rooms for the staff. (This first basement is actually the ground floor at the side of the courtyard, because there is a slope between the main courtyard and the rue aux Laines).
- The ground level (of the rue aux Laines) includes the reception hall, the direction, the secretarial offices, and full time consultations of the service heads for "paying patients".
- From the 1st to the 4th floor : 32 wards and rooms that can hold 120 needy patients, bandage rooms, doctors' and nurses' offices with service spaces. The rooms would either be individual, or with 2, 4 or 5 beds and a living room.
- From the 5th to the 7th floor : 39 wards and rooms that can hold the 60 beds reserved for paying patients of the Paul Héger clinic, generally in single rooms with a bathroom and service spaces.
- On the 8th floor : a restaurant for doctors, nurses and relatives of the non-needy patients with a terrace and the kitchens.

2) The T-Wing

The T-wing would have 6 floors, with its front directed at the rue de la Gendarmerie, and it would be dedicated to treatments :
- The 1st and the 2nd basement would contain ventilation machinery and extremely high tension medical devices; rooms for telecurietherapy and rooms for accumulators and short-wave equipment
- On the ground level : waiting rooms and consultation rooms
- On the 1st and the 2nd floor : waiting rooms and examination rooms + rooms for radiotherapy
- On the 3rd floor : laboratories, the library, a workshop and rooms for test animals
- On the 4th floor : rooms for radiotherapy and radio-diagnosis
- On the 5th floor : the surgery zone
- On the 6th floor : 10 rooms for internal nurses.

At the intersection of the two wings there would be a vertical circulation system. People would be able to access to the various floors with elevators, goods lifts and thanks to a tower with a 14% slope, allowing a quick and easy evacuation of the staff and of patients on stretchers, if necessary, as well as the circulation of visitors.
At that time, the tower was a novelty in hospital architecture.
The intersection of both wings would also include ventilation shafts.

The Bordet Institute would be linked to the St-Pierre Hospital through an aerial passageway (to transport food and patients who would have to go to the St-Pierre hospital for an examination or a blood test…) and through an underground tunnel for the rest of the traffic (laundry, transport of the deceased…)

As far as the construction is concerned :

During the works, the contractor discovered a tunnel that was probably part of the ancient fortifications of Brussels : because of the made ground he was forced to drive in a row of piles (pieux Franqui) at both sides of this tunnel and to put transverse girders made of reinforced concrete on top of them, in order to constitute solid foundations.

It was planned that :
- The skeleton of the building would be a steel framework coated with concrete (easiest process)
- The external walls would be made of cavity bricks and a sandstone slab cladding.
- The interior walls would have to be soundproofed in the H-wing and insulated from radiations in the T-wing (reinforced concrete or a double partition with lead would be used)
- The frames would be of bronze : sash windows for the bedrooms and horizontal sliding windows for other rooms.
- The hot water heating system would be linked to the installation of the St Pierre hospital.
- The ventilation would include an almost complete air conditioning installation, aspiration, filtering, heating and the reversal of the air.
- The electrical installation would include lightening, electric clocks, "person seekers" made up of boards with luminous numbers, a network of luminous signalling for patients to call nurses, an entire telephone equipment, a distribution installation of direct current, for the special uses of the laboratory, patrol recorders for the control of the night surveillance.
The electric current would be delivered by the autonomous power station of the St-Pierre Hospital.
- Sterilisations and disinfections would be carried out by the St-Pierre Hospital. However, the operation theatres, bandage rooms and consulting rooms would have sterilisation equipment, such as distillers and dry sterilises that are heated electrically.

As far as the architecture is concerned :

Both wings were elaborated separately, but each architect respected the rules of the hospital architecture. Indeed, the new establishment met the most modern requirements of the hospital technique.

Here are some of the new architectural rules for hospitals of the time:

• As far as the organisation is concerned :
  - central position in the city
  - the hospital is a block and everything is concentrated in a high building
  - the system of shared rooms with many beds is abandoned. Rooms with a maximum of 4-6 beds and the 3x3x3m singular bedroom is the ideal solution
  - lightening is essential, with big plate glass windows and a balcony
  - Corridor between the services and the rooms
  - The circulation is essential, and is different for patients, visitors and the rest of the traffic (food, laundry, the deceased…)
  - Lay out of the services : each floor is a closed unit and might correspond to a specialisation. The receptions and consultations are on the ground floor.
  - The operating suite will rather be on the upper floors, but between the different services and in direct relation with the bed lifts and it will preferably face the north to avoid atmospheric fluctuations.
  
• As far as the construction is concerned :
  Sash windows will be used because they allow easy heating, maintenance, and ventilation. Frontages with load-bearing walls will have to be avoided and the technique of the framework with partition doors, light partitions and flat roofs will be favoured.
  
• As far as the internal technique is concerned :
  - Favour any element of brightness, of surveillance and of maintainability.
  - Avoid irrational decorative elements.
  - Avoid sources of humidity and dust and the use of organic material such as wood. Wood has to be replaced by metal as far as possible.
  - On the floor : linoleum.
  - Canalisations cannot be hidden for hygiene reasons and for repairing.
  - Avoid carpets, curtains at any cost and build rooms in order to confine the sound produced using multiple layers of coatings, cavity walls and false ceilings...
  - A natural ventilation is the most best one.