UCLH Phase 5 - ENT and Dental Hospital

UCLH Phase 5 marks the latest phase of the hospital’s main campus regeneration, providing a specialist facility for ear, nose, throat and dental medicine. The site in London on Huntley Street is set at the heart of the Bloomsbury Conservation Area adjacent to listed residential neighbours. The newly completed award-winning hospital increases operational efficiency, reduces energy consumption, and puts the patient experience at the heart of the design. Intrinsically our design approach centres around the experience of the patients, visitors and the hospital staff. We have carefully considered the challenges our clients in the sector are facing, not only from a context perspective, but especially from a users’ perspective. The building design provides an environment which reduces stress and anxiety for the patients by providing clustered, bright and airy treatment zones. This shortens patient pathways, provides open day-lit waiting areas together with a stimulating art strategy. This should improve the outcomes for all patients being treated. Traditionally, such buildings are planned with clinical spaces at the facade and waiting areas at the core. Phase 5, by contrast, inverts this organisation with waiting areas on the street facade set in a range of bay windows. The architectural language of perforated brick screens provide shading to the more generously scaled communal waiting areas. The elements of the core - lifts, stairs and risers are each reflected in the external massing creating an articulated silhouette that serves to denote the hospital’s entrance for patients approaching from the north and west. The form and detail of these bays offer a contemporary reinterpretation of the bays of the adjacent 19th century mansion blocks. Passive solar shading is an integral part of the elevational design approach. The interior spaces are protected from southern solar gain by screens of perforated brickwork which peal out from the main body of the facade. The external shading and exploitation of thermal mass contribute to the building’s excellent environmental performance; Phase 5 is designed to achieve a BREEAM ‘Excellent’ accreditation. The 11,000 sqm hospital pulls together the specialist treatments formerly provided by the Royal National Throat, Nose and Ear Hospital and the Eastman Dental Hospital which collaboratively supports over 200,000 outpatient appointments per year.