Preservation and renewal

The Suzuki Clinic is an ENT clinic in a 90-year-old Western-style architecture, which was extended next to a 150-year-old townhouse.

However, the old clinic is very different from today's medical spaces.

It was a difficult space to use in terms of privacy, barrier-free access and the division of labour in medical examinations, with a tatami-matted waiting area, Japanese-style latrines and examination rooms where all work was carried out in one room.

We therefore designed a clinic that solves these problems and is also friendly to first-time patients and children, dispelling the old-fashioned image.

We decided to actively update the consultation rooms and to restore and preserve the waiting room in respect of the original.

The examination rooms are defined by an arc wall that echoes the centrality and symmetry of Western-style architecture.

The central part of the room is used as the examination area, while the perimeter is used for various examination booths and the backyard.

The entire space is further organised by an aluminium-foil-clad elliptical canopy.

The cranked flow line, which prevents the examination rooms from being directly visible from the waiting area, creates a sequence leading to the examination area while taking privacy into consideration.

The newly installed parts avoid contact with the existing walls and ceiling as much as possible, making it easy to restore them to their original state if the need arises.

In the waiting room, the existing characteristic decoration and furnishings were carefully restored and the old light fittings relocated.

The Japanese-style toilet was removed and a large bench with a bookcase was installed there to enhance the waiting area.　

Elements of the existing Western-style architecture resonate with the arcs and straight lines of the new walls and ceiling, creating an unexpected landscape.

The clinic, which has been updated with novelty as well as preservation, retrofits the Western-style architecture that was high-calibre at the time, as an architecture that will be used for the next 100 years.