Photo: Ersta Sjukhus
When Forum Vårdbyggnad announced the finalists for the 2025 Vårdbyggnadspriset (Swedish Healthcare Building Award) in the prestigious "Rum för vård" (Spaces for Inpatient Care) category, healthcare design professionals and industry leaders across the Nordic region took notice. What made this moment significant for us wasn't just the announcement of three exceptional hospital projects; it was the recognition that all three nominees were dRofus projects.
This unprecedented achievement underscores dRofus's position as the essential data management platform for healthcare facility planning and design in one of the world's most rigorous and demanding markets. Sweden's reputation as one of the global leaders in healthcare quality, innovation, and patient-centered design means that projects nominated for the Vårdbyggnadspriset represent the pinnacle of healthcare architecture.
For the dRofus community, this recognition validates a core mission: structured data is fundamental to delivering exceptional healthcare environments.
The Context: Sweden are Trendsetters for Global Standards
Sweden ranks consistently among the world's top 5-8 countries for healthcare system performance, known for balancing universal access with cutting-edge innovation, advanced digital infrastructure, and an unwavering commitment to patient outcomes. Swedish hospitals like Karolinska Universitetssjukhuset are recognized globally as benchmarks for clinical excellence.
This exacting standard extends to healthcare architecture and facility design. The Vårdbyggnadspriset, administered by Forum Vårdbyggnad and recognized by Sveriges Arkitekter (Swedish Architects Association), celebrates projects that exemplify research-based design, operational efficiency, sustainability, and the creation of healing environments. The award jury assesses entries rigorously across design quality, functionality, sustainability, and innovation.
That all three finalists in the "Spaces for Inpatient Care" category were dRofus projects speaks to the platform's critical role in translating clinical requirements, operational workflows, and design ambitions into executed reality.
The Three Nominees
1. Ersta sjukhus, Stockholm — THE AWARD WINNER
*Winner Announced: November 13, 2025
Ersta sjukhus stands as the winner of the 2025 Vårdbyggnadspriset in the "Rum för vård" category. This accolade marks the hospital's third major architectural and design recognition since its inauguration in 2023, following previous honors including Stockholm's "Building of the Year 2024" and Monocle magazine's "Best Healthcare" award in 2024.
The Collaborative Team:
The project brought together a constellation of renowned architectural and design firms: Tengbom (lead project manager and developer), Nyréns Arkitektkontor (competition winner), Ratio Arkitekter, SSEA, with Emma Olbers leading the interior color concept and loose furnishings design. Clinical leadership came from Stefan Nilsson, Director of Ersta Diakoni.
The Design Philosophy:
Ersta sjukhus represents a bold reimagining of what a modern hospital can be. Nestled on Södermalm in central Stockholm, the building rises six stories from one of the island's busiest streets (Folkungagatan) and reaches eight stories along the crest of the hill, respecting the scale and classical aesthetic of surrounding historic buildings while introducing contemporary design language.
The jury's citation captures the essence of the achievement:
"With precision, this building has been woven in and integrated into its surroundings. The open and welcoming entrance leads us to care environments where norms and standards have been carefully examined and challenged. The result is a bold building that both internally and externally balances a soft color palette, sensory materials, and efficiency in spatial proportions and relationships. A new hospital integrated into the dense urban fabric—to the benefit of all: patients, staff, and passersby."
Design Excellence Across Every Scale:
- Urban Integration: The hospital connects seamlessly with Stockholm's cityscape through ground-floor public spaces, lush courtyards with soft landscaping, and rooftop terraces offering views and respite
- Healing Environments: Interior design emphasizes soft color palettes, carefully curated materials, and sensory elements that support patient recovery and staff wellbeing
- Operational Efficiency: Layout challenges traditional healthcare delivery models by optimizing clinical workflows while maintaining human-centered design
- Sustainability: The building reflects Sweden's commitment to environmental responsibility, incorporating energy efficiency and sustainable material selections
Clinical Care Delivery:
Ersta Diakoni, a healthcare organization founded in 1851, grounded this project in a powerful legacy. Director Stefan Nilsson captured the organization's philosophy: "We built a hospital with the intention that it should be as beautiful and welcoming as possible. This recognition affirms the enduring truth of our first matron, Marie Cederschiöld's, words from 1851: A hospital must be beautiful."
The design translates this commitment into practice through evidence-based planning that integrates multiple disciplines—clinical staff, patients, family members, and designers—to create environments that support healing, reduce stress, and enhance operational outcomes.
2. Malmö Nya Sjukhusbyggnader (Skåne University Hospital Campus – Healthcare Buildings)
Designed by: White Arkitekter
Among Sweden's largest hospital projects, Malmö Nya Sjukhusbyggnader represents a decade-long collaborative effort to expand and modernize healthcare infrastructure in southern Sweden. The new buildings—totaling 110,000 square meters across 11 above-ground floors—opened in August 2025, making this a project at the forefront of contemporary healthcare delivery.
Project Scale and Scope:
The complex includes patient rooms, operating theaters, and state-of-the-art automated sterilization facilities. The design reflects healthcare architecture principles, with extensive collaboration with hospital staff to ensure that spatial planning supports both clinical workflows and patient experience.
Design Approach:
White Arkitekter emphasizes a human-centered design methodology grounded in research about how spatial qualities support patient recovery and staff wellbeing. The finalist application highlights how the new buildings integrate with Malmö's urban environment, creating a welcoming street-level experience while establishing a distinctive landmark visible from across the city.
The vision pursued throughout this massive project—integrating the hospital into the urban fabric through public plazas, pedestrian connections, and community spaces—represents a fundamental shift in how healthcare facilities relate to their cities and the communities they serve.
Recognition:
White Arkitekter has earned international acclaim for healthcare architecture, appearing among only two firms globally nominated for multiple projects at the prestigious European Healthcare Design (EHD) Awards Champions competition, which recognizes the world's best healthcare architecture over the past decade.
3. Högsbo Närsjukhus, Göteborg (Gothenburg)
Designed by: Sweco Architects
Högsbo Närsjukhus exemplifies innovation in regional healthcare delivery. This modern specialist hospital opened in December 2023, serving southwestern Gothenburg with outpatient specialist care, day surgery, and emergency services. The project addresses critical healthcare infrastructure needs as Gothenburg's population grows and existing facilities age.
Strategic Innovation:
Högsbo was commissioned as "Sweden's smartest hospital"—a mandate to challenge traditional healthcare delivery models while optimizing efficiency. The design achieves this through:
- Patient Empowerment: Layout design enables patient self-check-in and navigation, placing high demands on wayfinding and spatial organization
- Separated Workflow Streams: Patients, staff, and materials move through distinct pathways that converge at key nodes, minimizing congestion and cross-contamination
- Standardized Flexibility: All patient rooms and operating theaters use standardized designs, allowing workflows to adapt and shift without structural renovation
- Future-Ready Infrastructure: The building is designed to evolve as healthcare needs change, with digitalization and technical innovation supporting operational flexibility
Healing Design:
The architectural language emphasizes accessibility and warmth. Brick facades connect to historic buildings in the hospital district, creating visual continuity. Interior color concepts—blue, green, and black tones referencing the surrounding neighborhood's 1950s architecture—support orientation and recovery. Abundant daylight, private patient areas, and rooftop terraces foster the healing environment that design research identifies as critical to patient outcomes.
Operational Significance:
By expanding day surgery capacity and accepting transfers from larger academic hospitals like Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Högsbo demonstrates regional healthcare strategy: distributed specialist capacity, reduced wait times, and optimized use of complex infrastructure.
Why All Three Are dRofus Projects: The Deeper Story
The presence of all three finalists as dRofus projects is not coincidental. It reflects how dRofus has become the infrastructure for translating healthcare strategy, clinical requirements, and design ambition into coordinated, executable reality.
Centralized Requirements Management
Each of these projects involves managing hundreds of clinical requirements—room types, equipment specifications, workflow patterns, regulatory compliance requirements—across dozens of departments and multiple stakeholder groups. dRofus enables this complexity to be organized, maintained, and synchronized across the entire team.
Bi-Directional BIM Integration
As architects developed designs in Revit or ArchiCAD, changes to room functions, equipment needs, or spatial allocations were immediately reflected in the dRofus database. Clinical staff, engineers, and project managers accessed the same current information, eliminating the data silos that typically plague large healthcare projects.
Design Validation
Healthcare design relies increasingly on research about how spatial qualities—light, materials, proportions, color, views—impact patient outcomes and staff wellbeing. dRofus enables teams to document design decisions, track standards being applied, and validate that approved guidelines are being consistently implemented.
Compliance and Audit Documentation
Swedish healthcare facilities must meet rigorous regulatory requirements across infection control, accessibility, fire safety, and operational efficiency. dRofus provides time-stamped change logs, standardized documentation, and audit-ready compliance records—critical for healthcare projects subject to intense regulatory scrutiny.
Long-Term Asset Data
For hospital operators, handover extends far beyond construction. Complete, structured as-built information—equipment specifications, maintenance protocols, space allocations, warranty details—enables effective facility management throughout decades of operation. dRofus ensures this lifecycle information is captured during design and construction, not recreated after the fact.
Join the Standard
Ersta sjukhus, Malmö Nya Sjukhusbyggnader, and Högsbo Närsjukhus represent the pinnacle of contemporary healthcare architecture. They are more than beautiful buildings. They are evidence that when clinical requirements, design ambition, operational strategy, and project coordination align through structured data management, the result is healthcare environments that support healing, enable operational excellence, and establish new standards for what hospitals can be.
