LANDSCAPE DESIGN


The landscape masterplan for the new North View (formerly ‘Park House’) inpatient facility at North Manchester General Hospital.


A visualisation of the main arrival point at the new North View (formerly ‘Park House’) inpatient facility.


(Sustainability) Assessment Method) and Embodied Carbon Assessment Targets.


Stakeholder engagement Singularly the most important part of the design process is consultation and engagement on every aspect of the project with the Trusts, Estates teams, hospital staff, clinicians, patients, and service-users. Each project is unique, with differing requirements to suit the specific brief, so the designer needs to listen to, and work with, all of the prospective building users towards a successful outcome to the design. The criteria I have already mentioned – including Safety and Security, Scale and Size, Green roofs and Sky gardens, Biophilic design, and the costs and ease of building management and maintenance – provide the designer with a checklist that helps them unlock the brief for the particular project, and to disseminate the exact requirements in collaboration with the healthcare Trust’s ‘network’. Specialist healthcare contractors such as IHP Vinci and Kier, with whom we work regularly, can significantly help in guiding the design, cost, and construction viability in a positive way through the design process. We are working in collaboration with experienced mental healthcare design managers and a supply chain who are proactive in ensuring that emerging designs are fully deliverable and affordable.


Key criteria for a good design and successful outcome I will now focus on each of the criteria we consider key to a good design in a little more detail:


Biophilic design Integrating biophilic features and nature is desirable where at all possible, and should form part of a brief to the architect


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and design team for all mental healthcare settings. A selected site for development that already has some existing landscape infrastructure has an advantage to allow views out to be focused in the design of building orientation, and the shaping of the footprint. It is vitally important to make sure that any ‘negative space’ is designed out, so that there is no ‘left over landscaping’. What if the site is mostly an urban


constrained setting? This is where designing in biophilic features is essential to help create a ‘greening’ of the environment of the unit or hospital. ‘Living’ green walls are beneficial, but need to be carefully considered in terms of cost, maintenance, and irrigation requirements. Simple solutions for ‘greening’ within buildings can include interior plants in common areas so that they can be tended under supervision, and being on show means that they are looked after with ease (avoiding another maintenance responsibility for the managing Trust or other operator / owner, who will already have to prioritise certain aspects of maintenance within their budgets). The best biophilic solutions are within


the external environment to maximise any opportunity to provide living plants and trees so that ‘real nature’ is truly connected.


Celebrate the sense of arrival The journey of anticipation by a prospective service-user or patient to a mental health hospital will be stressful,


so it is the responsibility of the designer to create a building with an arrival space that is as legible, friendly, cheerful, and welcoming, as possible. The location on the site, place-making, design, scale, colour, and materiality of the building are important, so that the first views on approach will help make the new patient or service-user feel reassured and want to stay at the new building. Positive first impressions are key. The external arrival space will be


the first point of contact for new patients and service-users, and as such should be designed to feel welcoming and calm, so they are made to feel reassured. Our new arrival space at the new North View facility in Manchester has been designed to do just this, with its calming blue curvilinear ribbon feature, seating niches, trees, and gently mounded grassed areas.


Scale and size Not only should architects endeavour to eliminate the institutional approach as singularly the most important aspect of new building designs, but they also they need to maximise opportunities for including outdoor spaces as much as possible, so that they can work together with the landscape architect to seamlessly integrate the indoor and outdoor experience. The functional outdoor spaces relating to the immediate adjacency of the building, such as ward gardens and therapy spaces, must be generous enough to give a sense of space, but not


The location on the site, place-making, design, scale, colour, and materiality of the building are important, so that the first views on approach will help make the new patient or service- user feel reassured and want to stay at the new building


AUGUST 2022 | THE NETWORK


© copyright Iteriad


Courtesy of Gilling Dod Architects


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