FAAB Wraps a Polish Healthcare Complex in Perforated Metal Inspired by the Sea

Four hundred meters from the Baltic Sea, on five hectares of degraded brownfield land in Sopot, Poland, FAAB has completed the fourth and fifth phases of the ECR Health Care Complex. The two buildings, totaling 4,744 square meters, house supervised medical stay rooms, a restaurant, and an extensive rehabilitation center equipped with laser therapy, cryotherapy, and high-pressure systems for postoperative wound healing. They are the latest additions to a campus that already includes an analytical laboratory, an outpatient clinic, a day surgery hospital, and a specialist hospital.

What distinguishes Wave 4 and 5 from routine healthcare construction is the directness with which FAAB ties form to therapeutic intent. The perforated aluminum skin that wraps the buildings does not merely reference the nearby sea; it performs real work, controlling solar gain, modulating privacy, and casting shadow patterns drawn from the ancient Flower of Life symbol, historically associated with healing. The architects used 1:1 physical models to calibrate the proportions between openings and opaque panels, a degree of analog rigor that is becoming rare in a profession addicted to parametric defaults.

A Facade That Breathes and Shields

The white perforated aluminum envelope covers the south, east, and west walls, reflecting sunlight before it can overheat the interior. Shuttered window panels fold into a continuous protective barrier when conditions demand it. FAAB claims the building operates comfortably with all shutters closed, cutting summer cooling loads significantly. The ornamental patterning on the perforations is not arbitrary: it references the carved ornamental detailing found in local Sopot building traditions, updated in a material that can be prefabricated and assembled quickly.

Close up, the skin reveals its depth. Diagonal shadow lines shift across the surface throughout the day, and the narrow vertical window openings punched into otherwise opaque sections read like incisions rather than conventional fenestration. The corner details where perforated cladding meets flat paneling are clean and deliberate, evidence of the separate digital models FAAB built for the external skin, the steel structure, and the concrete structure beneath it.

Undulating Volumes and Sculptural Canopies

The upper volumes of the buildings carry an undulating geometry inspired by Pierre Carreau's AquaViva photographs, a series of close-up seascapes that freeze ocean waves into sculptural forms. At the main entrance, curved canopies project outward like frozen crests, their mesh cladding filtering light into the arrival sequence below. Seen from the side, these canopies give the complex a silhouette that is unmistakably referential to the Baltic coastline without drifting into kitsch.

The mesh-clad sloped roof visible through overhanging willow branches demonstrates FAAB's interest in layering natural and constructed textures. The perforated surface becomes translucent at certain angles, blurring the boundary between solid building and open sky. It is a subtle effect, best appreciated from the ground, where patients and visitors move slowly.

Courtyard and Landscape as Therapy

The project's site strategy converts what was once neglected brownfield into connected green spaces, parks, and courtyards threaded between the campus buildings. Rainwater harvesting systems embedded in the buildings and surrounding grounds reduce municipal stormwater loads, addressing a practical problem in a coastal city where drainage infrastructure is under increasing pressure.

The courtyard framed by triangular balconies is planted with native grasses and furnished with simple wooden benches set in gravel. It reads as a therapeutic garden rather than a decorative afterthought. Across the street, a landscaped stream lined with young trees creates a buffer between the complex and the neighborhood. Healthcare architecture frequently treats landscape as the last budget line to be cut; here it feels like it was designed concurrently with the building envelope.

Balconies as Privacy Devices

The prefabricated triangular balconies stacking up the facade are not decorative flourishes. Their angular railings are calibrated to limit sightlines into private rooms and between adjacent terraces, a critical consideration in a facility where patients recovering from surgery need both outdoor access and visual seclusion. The perforated screens enclosing each terrace allow dappled sunlight to enter while preventing direct overlooking from neighboring balconies.

From a patient room, the timber deck, hammock, and woven furniture create a domestic atmosphere at odds with the institutional character typical of post-procedure care facilities. FAAB has clearly designed these balconies as rooms in their own right, not appendages. The light that filters through the perforated panels shifts throughout the day, producing a shadow play that gives the outdoor space a contemplative, almost meditative quality.

Interior Warmth Against a White Shell

Inside, the palette pivots sharply from the mineral coolness of the perforated aluminum to warm light wood flooring, woven pendant lights, and yellow accents. The patient rooms are generous, with sliding glass doors opening directly onto private timber decks. A yellow armchair beside a curtained window is the kind of detail that signals a designer thinking about what recovery actually feels like: hours spent sitting, reading, watching light change.

The restaurant space extends this domestic register with folded plywood ceiling forms and yellow acoustic panels above blue upholstered chairs. It is a healthcare dining room that avoids the fluorescent-lit cafeteria trap. The material choices, plywood and fabric rather than laminate and vinyl, suggest a willingness to spend on surfaces patients will touch and see daily during extended stays.

Circulation as Experience

A white spiral staircase lined with perforated metal walls channels diffused light from above, turning a fire exit into an architectural moment. The main interior staircase features plywood balustrades and a white faceted ceiling that catches natural light at oblique angles. These are not grand gestures but careful calibrations of material and geometry in the spaces people pass through repeatedly.

The corridors leading to guest rooms employ geometric plywood wall panels and blue carpet, creating a wayfinding rhythm that breaks the institutional monotony of numbered doors stretching into the distance. For patients recovering from procedures, the walk from room to rehabilitation center is a daily ritual. FAAB treats that walk as something worth designing, not just connecting.

Dusk and the Reflecting Pool

At dusk, the building reveals a second identity. The illuminated base glows beneath the perforated skin, and the curved facade reflects in a shallow pool at ground level. The translucent quality of the mesh cladding, which reads as opaque in daylight, now allows the timber structure behind it to emerge as a warm backlit lattice. It is the moment when the sea metaphor lands most convincingly: the building appears to float, weightless, above its own reflection.

Plans and Drawings

The site plan reveals the angular footprint of Waves 4 and 5 within the larger ECR campus, surrounded by planted areas and pedestrian pathways that connect the new buildings to the earlier phases. The angular geometry creates pockets of outdoor space between volumes, each oriented differently to offer varying conditions of sun, shade, and wind protection. The planted areas are not residual: they occupy a significant portion of the five-hectare site, reinforcing FAAB's commitment to treating landscape as infrastructure rather than ornament.

Why This Project Matters

Healthcare architecture is one of the most constrained building types in practice: infection control, accessibility codes, equipment clearances, and budget pressures conspire to produce buildings that feel like machines for processing bodies rather than places for healing them. FAAB's ECR complex pushes back against that tendency without ignoring it. The perforated facade is simultaneously an ornamental, climatic, and privacy device. The balconies are simultaneously therapeutic outdoor rooms and solar control elements. Nothing here serves only one purpose.

The broader significance lies in what happens to the site. Transforming five hectares of brownfield into a connected health campus with integrated stormwater management and public green space is a form of urban healing that parallels the medical program inside the buildings. Sopot gains not just a rehabilitation center but a piece of reclaimed ground that the city can grow around. That kind of compound return, ecological, urban, and therapeutic all at once, is what makes the project worth watching as the ECR campus continues to evolve.

Wave 4 & 5, ECR Health Care Complex by FAAB. Sopot, Poland. 4,744 m². Completed 2025. Photography by Jakub Certowicz.

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