Medicine has always straddled the frontier of science and art. For all the rigour of the modern profession, the focus of medicine remains the human being rather than merely the human body. And just as a good clinician has empathy as well as learning, so a good hospital building goes beyond efficient functionality to encourage healing in its articulation of form, space and light.

Some specialties within medicine are more open to such ideas than others. Palliative care is an obvious example: a discipline concerned with maintaining the well-being and comfort of patients who are chronically or terminally ill. Patients who need palliative care are people who need, not only the best clinical interventions available, but also the most supportive and nurturing of environments in which to manage their illness.

The new palliative care centre for James Paget University Hospital in Norfolk promises to deliver this integration of values. The design by LSI Architects (of Norwich and London) won the design competition by “bringing together the art and science of care into innovative architectural form and shape”. These were the comments of Dr Patrick Blossfeldt, lead consultant for palliative care, who went on: “The centre design elegantly moulds together functional and practical elements with flowing sculptural forms and creates a central ‘heart of the building’. It will be an architectural landmark for the coastal area and offer a comfortable, uplifting and therapeutic space for our vulnerable patients and their families.”

The design is powerful because it combines a metaphor of the relationship of science and art with a practical realisation of this relationship: a sensible, low, square building of treatment and therapy rooms is invaded by a twisting organic form that defines a central lounge and circulation space that looks out through double-height glass onto a garden where water plays in the sunlight. But this is not merely a comfortable coexistence: the two parts of the building are deeply inter-related just as the science of medicine is here deeply infused with the art of healing.

Designed by LSI Architects, the centre moulds together functional elements with flowing sculptural forms

An emphasis on sustainability comes as no surprise for such a building. Timber is the obvious choice, a material that has a long local history in the boat-building industry of nearby Lowestoft. The precise specification is yet to be confirmed, but the main building form is likely to be composed of structurally insulated panels into which the organic core, itself inspired by the form of a boat, will flow. The building will be suffused with daylight, ventilated naturally and protected by a green roof. This roof is likely to be of value not only to the local wildlife but also to the patients in the hospital next door who will look out over a neighbouring building and, for once, not feel hemmed in by concrete.

It is estimated that the building will be used by up to 10,000 people each year. Yet as a place of refuge – the evocation of an ark is deliberate – the building must offer a contrast to the crowded and stressful environments that so many hospital buildings engender. The space given to the central lounge and circulation area and its openness to a private garden are crucial in achieving this: the curved, rising walls drawing the visitor’s attention out to the light and the sky.

The main building is likely to be composed of structural insulated panels

If all this sounds like the mature output of an architect familiar with the demands of the modern British health service, think again. The design was, in fact, developed by Gerald Buergel, a new graduate from Germany on a one-year placement with LSI Architects. The firm did not want to rest on its laurels – it has a long history of building innovative healthcare buildings – but was determined to bring fresh insight to the challenging brief for the palliative care centre. This was achieved by pursuing an internal design competition within the practice, which was duly won by Buergel. This thrust upon him the difficult task of presenting to the Norfolk competition panel in a language for which he had yet to gain confidence. One of his ambitions in coming to England was to gain a good grasp of English, but this was not perhaps the method of instruction that he had anticipated. Nonetheless, the panel, which included RIBA architects and representatives from local voluntary organisations, was impressed.

It is estimated the building will be used by up to 10,000 people each year

If this building is a success, this will reflect not only the imagination of the architect but also the far-sightedness of the James Paget University Hospital NHS Trust. ‘Working in partnership’ is a phrase often on the lips of NHS professionals these days but it is still unusual for a new building to be developed from the very outset through a genuine local partnership, rather than simply being driven by an estates department. Although this takes more time and effort, it is likely to pay off in the long run in the creation of a therapeutic space that is informed by the insight and experience of many different local stakeholders.

This new palliative care centre is not the first building to express the tensions of science and art within medicine through a design conversation between rectilinear and organic forms. A particularly famous precursor is Sir Denys Lasdun’s Royal College of Physicians in London’s Regents Park where the sharp, imposing modernism of the principal building is softened by the low, curving brickwork of the lecture theatre that nestles against it. Gerald Buergel may have some way to go before he reaches the dizzy heights attained by Lasdun but his sympathetic and generous design in timber is entirely appropriate for the thousands of Norfolk people who need care and support every year at times of great personal need.