Hamdan Bin Rashid Cancer Hospital

Hamdan Bin Rashid Cancer Hospital (HBRCH) will be Dubai’s first integrated comprehensive cancer hospital, combining primary care, diagnosis, and treatment to offer detection and intervention at earlier stages of the patient journey. The expansive hospital will house 50 clinics, 30 clinical trial areas, 60 infusion rooms, 10 urgent care rooms, 5 radiotherapy rooms, and 116 inpatient beds to meet current and future levels of demand.

Part of a larger vision for a future world-class Cancer Institute, HBRCH creates a new centre of gravity. The building design draws inspiration from the ghaf tree - the national tree of the UAE - which has symbolic and cultural significance as an emblem of life, peace, strength, and tolerance. These notions resonate deeply with environments of care and have inspired an architectural solution that embraces the natural environment as a metaphor for health, resilience, and sustainability, and as the setting for cancer prevention, treatment, and recovery. The gentle twist of the hospital massing reveals a series of roof terraces with 360-degree views, providing chemotherapy patients direct access to beautifully curated healing gardens as they spend time receiving treatment. The lower day zone of the Hospital is grounded in its material tone while the upper sleep zone has a lighter feel, consistent in materiality with a simple platonic form. At the heart of the new hospital is the serenity garden, a multi-storey open-air courtyard which brings daylight and vegetation deep into the core of the building and furnishes the various departmental reception and waiting areas with elevated internal gardens of their own. It is the focal point around which the building twists, its centre of gravity, and the principle organizing element for the interior circulation. At its terminus, the lowest level the serenity garden, stands a single ghaf tree—emblem of life, peace, strength and tolerance—a garden designed for solace. In total, the project features 19 distinct garden areas throughout its 9-storey height creating an oasis of care that contrasts beautifully with its surrounding environment. HBRCH is targeting LEED Gold certification and will meet the requirements for WELL Building Standards. The design features a high-performance building envelope, low carbon design strategies, and integrated rooftop photovoltaics. The deep façade is designed to maximize views from patient and staff spaces while passively managing solar gain and glare. The hospital is scheduled to open to patients in 2026.