ARCHITECTURE & DESIGN


Mental Health NHS Trust, along with the same design team (contractor, IHP, and services engineer, Hulley and Kirkwood). Thanks to the generous time given by our hosts, the trip also provided a useful knowledge exchange between the two Trusts.


Testing the design A ward courtyard.


views out of the building. Cycling is encouraged for staff and visitors, with enhanced facilities for bikes, while it is intended to provide showers for cyclists in the next planned phase of work.


Responsible design We developed a low-energy, environmentally sustainable, design. The layout is standardised, allowing adaption over time; for example the store rooms also feature windows to enable them to be converted to offices or patient spaces in the future. The building is designed with passive measures, meaning low energy and low-tech solutions to control the internal environment. These include tall ceilings, window vents at a high level, and exposing the building’s thermal mass (not always easy in healthcare environments with infection control measures) to reduce overheating in the summer, along with a high level of insulation to the buildings’ envelope to retain heat in the winter. This is supplemented by air source heat pumps, and a roof covered with photovoltaic cells to provide a renewable source of energy. The building is designed to achieve BREEAM ‘Excellent’, and is now awaiting certification post-construction.


Innovation and testing


A particularly valuable part of the design process was the continued testing of proposals in the form of mock-ups, samples, and visualisations. This enabled very engaged feedback from stakeholders. It also allowed us to make refinements to the design before things were built, informed innovation, and gave confidence to decision-makers.


Learning from previous projects The clinical team required assurance around the proposed two-storey ward arrangement, particularly on how outdoor space was provided on the first floor. To test this arrangement, we organised a visit to a similar two-storey mental health inpatient unit that we had designed, 10 years previously, at Springfield Hospital, for South West London and St George’s


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We mocked up key spaces early on in the design process. On the project start day we printed out a bedroom at 1:1 scale to test the size and arrangement with the project team. Later on we used virtual reality to allow the clinical team and patient representatives to experience a real sense of the spaces we were proposing. The bedroom and en-suite designs were built as prototypes to enable spatial testing, services arrangement, and physical robustness.


Collaborating with manufacturers We worked closely with the furniture supplier, Pineapple, which built two full- scale prototypes, allowing us to refine the bedroom joinery design until it satisfied Medium Secure Testing guidance. An adjacent former police station was redeveloped during the project, with a low building near the boundary to the hospital replaced by a series of taller townhouses. This created potential overlooking issues. Having explored options for projecting ‘oriel’ windows and external screening structures, and unhappy with the costs and potential climbing opportunities this created, we collaborated with the window supplier, Britplas, to adapt its Safevent mental health bedroom window with an additional integrated louvered screen that directed views away from the townhouses. This avoided the use of a ‘blanket’ translucent film, allowing patients to still benefit from direct views to the surrounding therapeutic landscape and sky, and enjoy good daylight, while maintaining their privacy from overlooking. This simple, integrated solution proved to be discrete, safe, and cost-effective.


Building details


A number of new components were specified within the building. There was


Ruairi Reeves


Ruairi Reeves is an architect based in London. He is a director of Medical Architecture, has been designing healthcare environments for the past 18 years, and is particularly interested in how a patient’s environment can contribute to their wellbeing and recovery. Previous projects include Glenside – a mental health campus in Adelaide, Australia, and Ferndene – a children and young person’s mental health and learning disabilities centre in Northumbria. He is also involved in the design of the new Irish National Forensic Mental Health Hospital, along with Scott Tallon Walker Architects. The facility is now nearing completion.


OCTOBER 2020 | THE NETWORK


The Project and Project Team Location: Tottenham, London. Value: £25 million. Area: 4,300 m2. Status: Completed Summer 2020.


Client: Barnet, Enfield and Haringey Mental Health Trust.


Architect: Medical Architecture. Services Engineer: Hulley and Kirkwood. Structure and Civil Engineer: Perega. Landscape: PLACE Design + Planning. Contractor: Integrated Health Partnerships.


significant investment in doors, which continue to be a major source of suicides within mental health units. Doortop sensors are fitted to each bedroom and en-suite door. The en-suite door can be locked open or shut depending on whether a patient has restricted access to the bathroom, for example in the Eating Disorders ward, or whether the door itself is considered a particular risk to patients. During design development, the new Kingsway Switch anti-barricade doorset came to the market, and is specified generally to patient rooms. This allows a safer way for staff to override a barricade situation, while minimising the risk of injury to themselves. The mechanism is located on the hinge side, so that their hands are away from the faster-moving door edge should it suddenly swing open.


Summary


This project is the result of constant testing to drive innovation, collaboration with patients, staff, manufacturers, and the wider project team. Blossom Court is designed modestly and simply to get the building fundamentals right: an effective and efficiently run service; a therapeutic, calm environment for patients and staff with good daylight and private views; longevity, long-term flexibility, and sustainability. It creates a building that service-users and staff can be proud of, while helping to reduce the stigma of mental health, and promote integration with the local community.


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©Tim Crocker


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