The programme committee and the jury of the architectural competition set two essential but also contradictory criteria for the new hospital: On the one hand were efficient distribution and management systems that favored a concentration of functions. On the other hand was the patients' need for peace, quiet and access to the outdoors, which meant smaller units, spread out over a wider area. The first criterion was very much of its time and intended to make the hospital a modern institution whilst the second criterion had its roots in the traditional mental asylum. The latter also brought with it segregation between men and women (even if this was already on its way out in other parts of the health system) as well as the practice of organizing patients into groups according to their behavior, that is: least challenging, moderately challenging and consistently challenging. The latter group would be discretely placed in the background away from the others. Work was regarded as therapy and the farm was an integral part of the hospital (though this practice would gradually disappear in the decades to come). At the time the Åsgård Hospital was being planned social class was no longer an organizational criterion, but the patients' geographical origin still were. Furthermore, the patients were also grouped based on whether they were chronically ill or not. Bringing all these criteria together created a highly differentiated hospital structure.