Step Exhibitions
North View – Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS FT, Iteriad & Gilling Dod Architects
Nominee Information
North View AMHU is the first phase of the overall development of the NMG hospital site.
Biophilic design is the overarching theme of the scheme expressed through the architecture and the integration with the landscape. The application of biophilic design is to mimic forms that are found in nature. The ward formation of the building is designed in a winged arrangement that wraps around outdoor space to form the private gardens each serving the adjacent internal ward areas. The scale of these spaces allows the service user to feel safe close to the building whilst enjoying connectivity with nature and the wider hospital estate.
The building is set in a linear arrangement to work with the form of the site providing a welcoming arrival space that connects with the main general hospital estate.
There are a total of 22 private patient-courtyards/gardens/roof-garden spaces together with a large public realm/arrival space and surrounding perimeter landscape zones to provide privacy and boundary security to the private zones of the hospital.
The design of the external landscape environment responds to the organic form of the architecture providing a series of adjacent private enclosed courtyards and gardens. The whole external environment is designed to connect the Patient and Service User with landscape and nature. Access to external space has been carefully considered to suit the specific and complex needs of the patients including male and female adult acute, older adult and a PICU unit. The outdoor spaces are designed to varying scales including small scale more intimate private courtyards, a café garden, roof gardens and gardens dedicated to each ward zone.
The main public realm arrival space provides a generous area consisting of drop off layby, ambulance access and a series of seating niches linked together by a sculptural curvilinear steel blue ribbon wall structure set within trees, planting and grassed lawns, providing a calming and welcoming feel to the approach and entrance area. This is an important outdoor space that links with the theme of open public realm spaces within the overall general hospital development masterplan strategy.
Along the eastern boundary the building sits at a higher level with a stone gabion retaining wall separating the site from the road below. Generous swathes of planting with native trees provides a buffer zone to the wards and gardens at upper level on this side of the building.
Biodiversity Enhancement including Blue/Green Infrastructure – The new planting includes native and ornamental trees and plant species to enrich the biodiversity of the overall site. The trees and plants provide colour, texture and seasonal variety and to attract insect pollinators such as bees and butterflies. Each private garden has a seating circle to encourage the patients and service users to immerse themselves within the intimate scale of the garden providing the feel of a calming and safe haven set amongst plants and flowers.
The boundaries are planted with native hedges to connect with adjacent vegetation as part of the ecological enhancements to the wider area.
