Edinburgh : Edinburgh Childrens Hospital, United Kingdom

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Ancient Scottish capital city to receive explosion of colour in Children's Hospital

 

 

Locally regarded as Sick Kids, Edinburgh's historic Royal Hospital for Sick Children is to be relocated to a colourful new building designed by Nightingale Associates. Branching into a new location, this will be only the second of Nightingale's projects in Scotland, following a successful bid for Dumfries Royal Infirmary earlier this year.

 

 

Edinburgh is a notoriously difficult city for modern architecture. The Scottish Parliament building, designed by Spanish architect, the late Enric Miralles, sits at the foot of the Edinburgh's Royal Mile despite intense disapproval from many residents from the design stage. But while the new design for the Sick Kids features an impactful, brightly coloured facade, resistance is less likely as the project will move services from the existing city centre hospital to the outskirts of the city adjacent to the new Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh.

 

 

The £150m design for NHS Lothian was won through the new Frameworks Scotland scheme. It will provide 30,000sqm of space containing children and young people’s A&E, day case and inpatient areas; an imaging department; outpatients unit; therapy suite: theatre suite; a critical care unit; Child and Adolescent Mental Health day case and inpatient unit; as well as a child and family hotel. There will also be facilities for rehabilitation, education and staff administration.

 

 

Kieren Morgan, Health Development Director, said: "Nightingale Associates was awarded the contract based on, amongst other things, the innovation displayed in its design, which used new concepts such as ‘cruciform wards’, Sense Sensitive Design and the much-discussed single-bed wards. The practice was able to draw on its pervious similar experience on the Design for Life NHS framework in Wales, through which it was selected to design the first ever 100% single-room hospitals to be built in the UK."

 

He continued: "It is extremely important that the design of this building reflects the significance of the project, and that we therefore use and build on our pioneering research completed for the Welsh Designed for Life 'pathfinder' hospitals to ensure that this building is regarded as a benchmark in healthcare design.”

 

Niki May Young

News Editor

 

 

http://www.worldarchitecturenews.com/index.php?fuseaction=wanappln.projectview&upload_id=11452

[MTLskyline]

Yikes! This shouldn't look like a toy store!