Donation Bar: Blood Donation Room on Hamburg’s University Campus

The small facility by the architects from brandherm + krumrey was created on Hamburg’s university campus in cooperation with the Eppendorf university clinic. It is intended to raise students’ awareness and lower their inhibitions concerning blood donation.

The L-shaped main room of the Donation Bar wraps itself around a separate area which adjoins the entrance to the left. In the separate volume, which is tiled in white, there are two treatment rooms. The reception features a small seating corner and a black counter that has more of a bar about it than anything from a medical institution. Right beside this, four treatment chairs are arranged in a row along the windows opposite.

brandherm + krumrey have designed the colour scheme of the donation room to be both simple and suitable for hygienic requirements. White and black form the background for topic-related details. Wiring and cables run through a red network of exposed installations set against the white walls to symbolize blood in the veins and arteries of the human body. Further topic-related links appear in the form of large lettering representing blood types and rhesus factors; the word “Blutgeschwister” [Eng. blood siblings] is written in black tiles above the counter.

Posters and a donation thermometer that can be tracked online advertise the medical facility at the university. Bloody Thursday invites groups of donors to the space at the University of Hamburg every week as a way to do everything possible to increase the numbers of blood donors in Germany, which currently lies at just three per cent.