The main face of the building is the raised ‘basket weave’ pierced glass of the in-patient wards. · Credit: Jocelyn Low
Maybe one day healthcare will be technology and care wrapped in compassion and delivered in our homes. Until then we house it in a home of its own. It’s not easy to contain though; a whole village of activity needs collecting under one roof. Circle Reading is a private hospital, with operating theatres and diagnostic imaging, in-patient beds and infrastructure. It also has outpatient and daycase facilities.
Much about it is familiar and even to some extent defined in available guidance from the NHS. But closer examination reveals just how this building embodies a client’s determination to demystify its brief and truly understand the design through interrogation and iteration.
The client selected Bryden Wood for the practice’s capacity to be nimble; to deconstruct what is complex and define it better as understandable components and avoid challenges becoming solid hurdles. It wished to refine a design process it had started elsewhere, learning from that to establish a model for its healthcare architecture.