Study tours

BDP, in collaboration with Laing O’Rourke, has designed and delivered a major addition to the Royal Sussex County Hospital site in Brighton’s Kemptown conservation area. The £480 million Teaching, Trauma and Tertiary Care Centre (3Ts), now known as the Louisa Martindale Building, constitutes the first of three phases in the redevelopment of the southern half of the campus. The development will double the healthcare accommodation to 361 beds, (75 per cent single, en-suite rooms), while also providing a new HQ, university teaching/research facilities, 390 basement parking spaces, and a central facilities management hub and energy centre. 

The building’s therapeutic environment is demonstrated most vividly by its ward concept. The three ward ‘fingers’ were sized and angled to meet the brief, which called for sea views from every bedroom. Bedrooms on the inward-facing facades have angled bay windows which direct the view from the patient bed towards the sea, while minimising overlooking. Gardens and terraces are set between the fingers, providing patients and staff with attractive views and sheltered places to enjoy the outdoors. 

Use of modular and off-site construction anticipated the New Hospital Programme drive for standardisation, reducing build costs without compromising on design quality or the ability to respond to the sensitive site context. Floors, columns, facades, bathrooms, service risers and horizontal distribution were all pre-fabricated, improving site safety, construction quality and installation times.

Highgate East is a new, 78 bed mental health inpatient facility for the North London NHS Foundation Trust. The facility includes adult acute and older adult wards with therapy, support and administration space. The restricted available area, adjacent to the Grade II listed Jenner building, posed town planning and construction logistics challenges. These were overcome though consultation with the local authority and design review panel and development of quality design detail that took references from the site. 

The aspiration for the building design was to destigmatise mental health by creating an overlap between the Trust services and publicly accessible zones. Active frontages are incorporated with glazed, welcoming facades to a café in the reception area, with office accommodation facing Dartmouth Park Hill and the main thoroughfare through the Whittington Hospital. All service user areas are flooded with light and have views out to help orientation. Secure ‘sky gardens’ have give access to fresh air and a connection with nature. 

The inpatient wards have been designed with clusters of bedrooms to form houses that enable service user support through alignment with a more domestic scale environment. They are supported with services to enable local control in terms of temperature and isolation through services zoning. 

Light and airy spaces that support the needs of the individual and connection to nature and the community were key drivers, achieved in the award winning design.

The Lowther Road Integrated Community Mental Health Centre (ICMHC) is a state-of-the-art outpatient facility developed by the former Camden and Islington NHS Foundation Trust, now North London NHS Foundation Trust. This new-build project replaces an outdated 1980s structure with a flexible and sustainable healthcare facility designed to enhance the delivery of mental health services. 

The strategic vision of the project was to create an integrated, patient-centred environment that consolidates borough-wide mental health services while providing an accessible, welcoming space for service users, staff and the community. The design focuses on breaking down stigmas associated with mental health facilities by incorporating open, communal areas, ample natural light and green spaces.

Key elements include dedicated outpatient consultation and treatment rooms, flexible workspace for healthcare professionals and community-focused facilities such as a café, meeting spaces and collaboration zones. 

The rationale behind the design solution was to develop a facility that supports holistic, multidisciplinary care, allowing patients to access a variety of services in a single location, close to home. The new centre prioritises sustainability, incorporating energy-efficient systems, green roofs and a pocket park to enhance urban integration. Its architectural form respects the surrounding residential and historic context while providing a distinctive identity that promotes wellness, accessibility, and operational efficiency.

Once complete, the new 165,000m² children’s hospital and associated Children’s Research and Innovation Centre will be heralded as a world-class facility for children and young people from all over Ireland, who have complicated and serious illnesses and are in need of specialist and complex care. It is the largest, most complex and significant capital investment project ever undertaken in healthcare in Ireland. It will bring together three existing children’s hospitals, tri-located on one campus with St James’s Hospital and a planned maternity hospital. 

The new children’s hospital will provide 384 inpatient beds, including 62 critical care beds, with an allocated number of larger rooms for therapists – also world-class care and treatment for a projected 28,258 inpatients and 223,355 outpatients per annum, including satellite centres. The hospital will benefit from 14 theatres in total, including three hybrid theatres to facilitate access to imaging during surgery, an emergency department and urgent care facilities in both the new children’s hospital and satellite centres. 

At the heart of the design is an oval ward pavilion, set within one of Europe’s largest roof gardens, that gives the hospital an instantly recognisable and friendly identity. The introduction of the ‘floating garden’ halfway up the building elevates the importance of nature and the therapeutic environment, making it a central part of the architecture’s character. Once the new hospital is complete, there will be open views from the floating garden and the wards towards Kilmainham and Phoenix Park beyond, creating a strong landscape and architectural axis that will ‘ground’ the new building in its context. 

Dublin Simon Community supports people to exit homelessness, access and retain homes, and rebuild lives by delivering housing, health and wellbeing services. Dublin Simon approached OCMA to consider the feasibility of accommodating a significant expansion of its facilities and services offered at its site at Usher’s Island, which sits along Dublin’s historic quays. 

OCMA worked closely with Dublin Simon’s property and service provider teams to determine the key strategic goals for the development – to provide flexible multifunctional spaces that support an interdisciplinary team approach to treatment and residential care. The ensuing brief led to the design of a 100-bedroom facility spread over six floors with accompanying living and treatment facilities, dining room and kitchen, gymnasium and a range of training and administration offices, integrated into a coherent layout. 

The five-storey over partial-basement brick-clad building establishes a new landmark gateway on the western approach to the city of Dublin along the River Liffey. It provides a high-quality urban book end to the last city block before Guinness’s St. James Gate, presenting a strong west-facing elevation to Heuston Station and the Phoenix Park beyond. 

The building reimagines the materiality and proportions of Dublin’s Georgian vernacular in a contemporary form and reflects the values of the Dublin Simon Community, proudly providing enduring quality care for the city’s most vulnerable citizens.