Health in the building

Hospitals and surgeries designed to heal If any buildings should boost the feelgood factor, surely health centres should. One that is nurturing wellbeing within its walls is Rutland Lodge in Leeds. The centre, designed by OSA Architects, uses solar water heating, has solar ‘chimneys’ to pipe in fresh air, and flushes its toilets with rainwater. It sports the city’s only photovoltaic panels to generate electricity, and patients can pass the time watching a special display panel charting how much they are producing. Tall south-facing windows make the waiting room more of a suntrap than a germ box, and of course reduce the amount of central heating and lighting needed. Another treat is the specially chosen linoleum. The floor covering that has made something of a style comeback is made from linseed oil, and does not collect asthma-inducing dust the way that carpets do. Meanwhile, hospitals across Britain are benefiting from thoughtful and sensitive touches under an initiative from the King’s Fund known as Enhancing the Healing Environment. As Prince Charles put it rather poetically at the launch of this ongoing project: “It can’t be easy to be healed in a soulless concrete box… The spirit needs healing as well as the body.” The kind of thing that makes a difference? Redesigning a dismal corridor, to distract patients on the dreaded journey to the operating theatre; transforming gardens and waiting areas to give families somewhere to soak in traumatic news; fitting a stained glass window in a ward for the elderly. - Hannah Bullock

20 June 2005

Hannah Bullock