HOSPITAL REDEVELOPMENT
to so much that it was unrecognisable, and agreed it wasn’t worthy of listing.” Planning application
The planning application for the ‘3T’s’ redevelopment was submitted in September 2011, and approved in late January 2012, with the Trust’s Section 106 signed in late March 2012. Duane Passman
said: “We initiated the decant process in 2012; we had to get a separate planning application to undertake the 18-month refurbishment of St Mary’s Hall (staff moved into the former girls’ school in June 2013). It was a difficult project for Kier, as quite a lot of the building was in poor repair. Other decant projects have then been ongoing while we secured the
final approval, which we received just before Christmas 2015.”
The approvals process was ‘extremely difficult’, Duane Passman acknowledged: “We were asking for public money – £485 million from the DH – and had to jump through many hoops to get it. My team and the project team, here – 15 of us in all – took about 6-7 months to write the full business case; from submission it then took just over a year to approval. I can’t begin to describe how big a document the full business case is.”
A ‘very substantial’ scheme I asked about local people’s views on what is – by any measure – a substantial scheme. Duane Passman replied: “There were a substantial number of views expressed, which is not surprising, given that we are bordered by residential areas. There were pockets of resistance, mainly about the impact of constructing such a big development, and what that would mean for residents. We addressed this in our planning application. By the time it is all completed it will all be one large building – the Cancer Centre on the western side, and the new general acute clinical and neurosciences building on the east.
An external CGI of the main entrance to the Stage 2 building. The architect’s view
Architect, BDP, said of the scheme: “Our brief was to redevelop the Royal Sussex County Hospital on a very constrained urban site, replacing 200- year-old buildings with modern facilities for 21st century healthcare. Our goal is to give the hospital a reinvigorated sense of place, and an environment that is as reassuring and welcoming as possible.
“Our solution fits a large-scale hospital sensitively into its historic context. At the start of the project we sourced many visual references to Brighton and Britain’s seaside culture. The desire was to embed the aesthetic of the new hospital firmly in its context, adjacent to the eastern extension to Brighton’s historic centre, with its Regency-style residences with white facades and curved bay windows representing an English version of seaside arcadia. The new building has adopted and
reinterpreted these visual references. It also ties our award-winning Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital to the town at its feet and, in return, extends the Regency feel northwards. The site topography is fully exploited, with the building mass broken down into fingers which contain the bulk of the
50 Health Estate Journal March 2017
ward accommodation and face south, with views over the English Channel. “The building integrates all aspects of design to create a place that is compassionate and therapeutic, and supports healing and recovery. Patients will enjoy mainly single rooms with en suite facilities, all enjoying sea views. Generous landscaped gardens are easily accessible from many levels of the building. Wayfinding, signage, and arts, have been embedded in the design from the beginning. The interior architecture guides the user from first arrival up through the many levels of this complex site, linking the new and existing main entrances, which are five floors apart, through a series of lifts and public spaces offering a café, restaurants, a performance space, a heritage space containing memorabilia from the original hospital, and a multi-faith facility. The building is designed to be easily understood and navigated despite its inevitable bulk and complexity.”
BDP’s interdisciplinary services on this project include architecture, environmental engineering, interior design, landscape architecture, planning, and sustainability.
“There were people who were genuinely worried about the construction work’s impact, and I completely understand that, and another group who said: ‘You shouldn’t be building it here anyway. Why don’t you build it outside Brighton?’ While I acknowledged their argument, the question would have been ‘Where?’ Around the whole of Brighton, you have the South Downs National Park. The only other potential site was where the Brighton & Hove Football Stadium now is, next to the University.”
Demolition progressing well Duane Passman explained that demolition of some of the existing buildings, such as the ‘old’ Trust headquarters, and the ‘extension to Building 545’ (the audiology and ENT building), had already taken place, while in the week I met with him, work was about to be completed on the internal asbestos strip of the Estates and Occupational Health building. He added: “By late January 2017, the contractors will be ready to start digging a very large hole.” While the demolition work had been ongoing, another ‘massive project’ had been progressing elsewhere on the site to divert heating and electrical services to and from the Barry Building to existing facilities on the northern part of the estate to ensure uninterrupted clinical activity while demolition progressed ‘in the middle’. “Laing O’Rourke is overseeing and managing that project very quietly and with minimal disruption, despite it being a phenomenally
© BDP/Brighton and Sussex University Hospitals NHS Trust.
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