‘The Same But Different’ – Designing High Rise Mental Health for Children and Adults

Synopsis

Arcadis’ architectural and interior design team has worked closely with the South London & Maudsley MH Foundation Trust (SLAM) and its stakeholders to design two high quality, patient-focused facilities within a very constrained site – Pears Maudsley Centre for Children and Young People (CYP) and Douglas Bennett House for Adults (DBH).
Designing and delivering two 10,000m2 high density, multi-storey buildings only metres apart presented a number of challenges, not least fitting the required floor area onto the congested site.
The design solution for CYP was an eight-storey building which includes research and office spaces, four floors of outpatient services, inpatient rooms and a school on the seventh floor. Large landscaped roof terraces and a school exercise terrace offer space for planting and nature. At DBH the solution was a five-storey building with 143 adult inpatient beds and a PICU. Each ward is based around a triangular light well to ensure good daylight internally along with double height balconies and outdoor rooms to offer outside space to inpatients at each level. The tiered designs and approach to evidence-based biophilic design, not only enhanced levels of natural daylight into all spaces, it helped reduce the overall impact of the schemes and contributes to achieving the London Plan urban greening factor.
This talk will showcase how these two different use buildings were designed with a shared architectural language both in their form and use of contextually integrated external materials to fit within the conservation area.
The interior design of the two buildings will also show how the same materials can be used in different ways to achieve appropriate designs for the very different user groups. It was important on CYP to use a colour scheme which was age appropriate for the young people who will use the building as the majority are teenagers.