Bob Wills from Medical Architecture and the project stakeholders, together with AT Awards judges Nana Biamah-Ofosu, Simon Allford and Peter Bishop discuss the key design drivers behind this pioneering Liverpool-based project and the impact it has had on our attitudes to designing for mental health. Tim Soar’s photographic reportage shows the scheme as it looks today.
Clock View Hospital has been a catalyst for the regeneration of one of the most deprived areas of Liverpool. It has also set a new national benchmark for mental health facilities that provide a safe, dignified and therapeutic environment.
A transparent landmark foyer gives the hospital a strong public presence helping to destigmatise mental health services within the local community. Early engagement with staff and service users emphasised the importance of a ‘non-clinical’ environment, favouring bright and airy spaces. Interiors incorporate warm colours, natural wood finishes and integrated art and sculpture commissioned through a partnership with Tate Liverpool.
Wards are arranged as single-storey prefabricated, lightweight timber-framed pavilions with their own gardens – a typology that allows for future adaptability in response to changing models of care.
The facility is designed as a sequence of low pavilions in an ecologically diverse landscape bringing a domestic scale and informality to a substantial civic building.
Nana Biamah-Ofosu This remarkable project demonstrates the importance of architecture to health and healing spaces. The human scale, material tactility and continuous relationship to nature through a series of courtyards, are all powerful ingredients for making great spaces. It seems simple to say but this project serves as a reminder of the value of architecture to society.
Bob Wills, architect Our goal was to design an exemplar that challenged the negative view of mental health facilities, a place with civic pride set within the public realm and no fences. With one-in-four of us encountering mental health services in our lifetime, we imagined what it might be like to occupy such a building ourselves.
Simon Allford Clock View Hospital is a remarkable project that has more than fulfilled the ambitious brief. Located in a troubled district of Liverpool, the building offers accommodation for residents suffering from serious mental health illnesses. It is necessarily a very secure facility not that different in brief to a prison. And yet it connects well with its neighbours presenting a welcoming, white yet warm domestic architecture that has an appropriate civic presence that both welcomes visitors in and helps to calm residents. It’s well planted gardens have matured beautifully and offer delight to all who pass through and by. A tough area, an ambitious brief, and a well-tested, proven and delightful architecture.
The welcoming entrance courtyard enjoys views of the former Walton Hospital clock tower, a much valued local landmark.
Dave Riley, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust Just walking around the building fills you with a sense of optimism for the future. I think when you walk onto a ward or through the grounds, inevitably it makes you feel more upbeat. For me, it’s that overarching organisational message, which is saying to people that use our services and to our staff, this is a really important place. We’re prepared to invest in this. We’re prepared to make this a really special place. So the message that we’re sending out is that we really value how people are cared for here, and we value you, the staff, as the people providing that care.
Joe Rafferty, Mersey Care NHS Foundation Trust We have fewer costs … far fewer injuries and days off work. People stay for shorter periods of time here and it’s a more efficient unit.
Sam McCumiskey, Liverpool Sefton Health Partnership Clock View continues to regenerate due to its adaptability and flexibility. For example in the Covid pandemic, the building was used as an admissions unit for the whole of Mersey Care Trust local services, because the design meant that those with Covid could still be accommodated within the building. An important lasting impact is how Clock View has influenced attitudes and expectations to the built environment across the Trust. It’s the new norm. Design quality and culture are now embedded, as well as certain design principles, such as courtyards. The staff team and users who were heavily involved in the design of Clock View took that learning across all parts of the Trust.
Courtyards and cloisters encourage building users to enjoy outdoor space throughout the year.
Peter Bishop If any form of architecture can transform the quality of life then it is in the medical sphere. Set in a deprived part of Liverpool, this elegant new mental health facility meets the challenging brief of providing a secure facility through a light and sensitive building that sits within a landscape of courtyards and communal spaces. The individual rooms and communal spaces are bright and well-proportioned, and the building as a whole meets exacting environmental standards. The judges were particularly impressed by the attention given to the experience of friends and relatives visiting the hospital. The step change from the previous building is remarkable. This is the architecture of dignity and humanism.
Stained glass is part of an integrated art and sculpture programme commissioned in partnership with Tate Liverpool.
Project presentation
View Bob Wills from Medical Architecture and Sam McCumiskey from Liverpool Sefton Health Partnership give a presentation on Clock View Hospital below
Additional Images
