Interior Design

New South Glasgow Hospitals

Brief

Our aspirations for the New South Glasgow Hospitals were based on creating a series of people focused environments. Where our more recent experiences had seen the procurement route weigh heavily on the interior architecture, the different procurement offered here excited us.  We saw considerable opportunity to impose a greater interior awareness, for our designers to bring the diversity of their knowledge and skills to the process and perhaps completely remove the institutional association.  We hoped to stimulate all involved.

Response

Our design proposals looked to create a distinctive interior language to both the Adult and Children's hospitals. We believed  it possible to generate interior spaces, detailing and interest in a calming yet inspirational manner.  We wanted to break perceptions; we wanted to remove the institutional expectations and introduce materials, ideas and styling from other walks of life – more comfortable and homelike.  While the clinical model developed in parallel to that of the exemplar – we looked to improve patient and staff circulation through a clear wayfinding strategy and the introduction of colour and graphic identities.

Outcome

All clinical functions, out-patient facilities, A&E, high dependency department, the Children's hospital and retail facilities were located within the low rise podium element.  Throughout the buildings we utilised materials and design tools that would be as at home in a modern hotel or office environment. Transparency and human movement were very important – we believe that the background should be neutral and robust with material and colour highlight to aid focus and the sense of place.  People should offer the colour and animation throughout.  The project extended our inter-disciplinary collaboration skills,  throughout the design development process we worked seamlessley with our in-house 3D teams.  For us it was vital that all ideas were tested in both 2 and 3D.  Our ideas had to be practically founded, imaginative, fresh and relevant.

Team