Placemaker: Power of three
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The staff club at the top of the Holywood Arches Centre provides views over Belfast
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South and East Belfast Health and Social Services Trust had a vision: to modernise how it delivered health and social care to its resident population of 205,000. The vision included the development of three community care and treatment centres (CTCCs), each offering a one-stop approach to service delivery.
Designed by London firm Penoyre & Prasad in partnership with Belfast-based Todd Architects, each centre has been award-winning, but it is the power of all three as part of the successful delivery of an integrated health strategy that sets the centres apart as placemakers.
The first of the new CCTCs to be completed, the Holywood Arches Centre was a formerly busy but lacklustre health centre, which was rejuvenated with the construction of a new building in front of the old centre – the two buildings are now linked together by a generous atrium.
The new centre provides a range of services including social care, primary and community healthcare and acute care out of hospital, as well as seven separate GP practices. The design aims to facilitate future changes in practice, demand, technology and changing work patterns.
To encourage staff to come together at lunchtime and share knowledge (300 are outreach workers delivering care in people’s home), a staff club was designed on the roof with panoramic views out across Belfast.
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The Bradbury Centre's four storey atrium acts as a link
between the building's two main elements |
Located on a compact, awkwardly-shaped corner site alongside a mainline railway, the Bradbury Centre in South Belfast is made up of two main elements: a curved, glazed organic form and a long brick and rendered block – linked with a glazed-roof four-storey atrium.
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| Services in the Knockbreda Centre are arranged around a curvaceous atrium |
Welcoming, accessible and easy to navigate, the building is designed to be a pleasure to visit. Interesting colours, warm materials, natural light and a specially commissioned series of artworks create a calm, uplifting and distinctly noninstitutional environment.
The Knockbreda Centre, highly commended in this year’s Design & Health International Academy Awards, was the last of the three community care and treatment centres to be completed.
The 4600sqm five-storey centre achieves civic presence with a generously glassy elevation directed towards the shopping and civic centre opposite – and providing views to the hilly landscape beyond. Internally, services are arranged around a curvaceous atrium.
The upper entrance is signalled by the printed glass artwork on the curtain walling. Several sculptures are placed around the site within the landscaping and, internally, there are a number of wall hangings and pictures as well as large scale textiles, helping to create a noninstitutionalised healthcare environment.
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