PROJECTS
The desire to create a homely environment defined the approach to the building environmental design.
It is set in a sunny garden where plants and trees lift the spirits and contrast with the necessarily clinical atmosphere of the nearby oncology unit.
The plan is informal – there are no corridors or main entrance and patients wander through the garden to walk into the heart of the building, the kitchen, the central table and the fireside. A gently-sloping roof extends outwards on its long east and west elevations to create verandas and courtyards. Although the centre is largely single storey, the roof rises at mid-point to create a mezzanine level, naturally illuminated by triangular roof lights and supported by lightweight timber lattice beams. The beams act as natural partitions between different internal areas, visually dissolving the architecture into the surrounding gardens.
The centre combines a variety of spaces, from intimate private niches to a library, exercise rooms and places to gather and share a cup of tea. Support spaces are placed on the mezzanine positioned on top of a wide central spine, with toilets and storage spaces below, maintaining natural visual connections across the building.
Throughout the centre, there is a focus on natural light, greenery and garden views. Small courtyards on the east side are private external spaces leading from counselling or treatment rooms; on the west side are more open, public spaces which extend into the garden as verandas. All these spaces open up to the garden through large, full-height sliding glass doors.
The south end of the building extends into a greenhouse, a garden retreat and a space for people to gather and enjoy the therapeutic qualities of nature and the outdoors.
In common with all Foster buildings, the design is a synthesis of the brief, the structure and the choice of materials. This is clear from Norman Foster’ s earliest sketches of the structure: a delicate filigree of timber elements which resembles the extended skeleton of a bird, its wings outstretched at the sides. Within this sketch are contained all the elements of the plan – low in scale to respond to the suburban context, long on the east and west elevations to link to the surrounding garden landscape and with a central spine which encloses space for administration and services. The nature of the building suggests that the material for the structure would be domestic in scale and emanate warmth yet be sustainable; timber was the inevitable choice.
The structure is exposed throughout the building and consists of laminated veneer lumber( LVL) trusses each with a set of diagonally opposed double web elements, creating a delicate filigree of timber. A series of LVL trusses form the central spine; they are set on the diagonal and rise to the ridge, where the spaces between them are infilled with triangular glazed roof lights. At their bases each pair of diagonal trusses meet at a triangular LVL node; this connects them to the LVL column below and connects both to an LVL truss beam which cantilevers outwards to support the gently sloping roof, supported at its end by a slender steel column.
// FEB / MARCH 2017 35