The Catkin Centre and Sunflower House project for Alder Hey NHS Foundation Trust in Liverpool, designed by Cullinan Studio and delivered by 10architect has now opened. The project, won through RIBA competition, brings together in two connected buildings, a range of specialist mental health facilities that were previously scattered across the hospital site and the city of Liverpool.

Together the buildings stand as an innovative, joined-up approach to the treatment of mental health for children and young people. By bringing services together under one roof, the Trust will be able to achieve better outcomes for children, young people and families and deliver improved efficiencies through more effective ways of working and a more holistic approach to care.

Traditional hospital buildings tend to be mazes without centres: confusing labyrinths of corridors and identical, boxy rooms that leave patients disorientated and alienated. Cullinan Studio has taken a completely different approach - cloistered routes surround two courtyard buildings, where clusters of consulting rooms, bedrooms and day spaces are gathered around a central outdoor garden room offering activities and views, daylight and fresh air. An environment that is warm and welcoming, homely and connected to nature; for a sense of restorative tranquillity.

 Roddy Langmuir, Practice Leader, Cullinan Studio, said:

“Research demonstrates that we must re-forge our connection to nature to stimulate healing - particularly for the mind. Our design for The Catkin Centre and Sunflower House embraces this therapeutic principle with places for refuge and outlook, gathered around courtyard gardens to create an environment that is warm and welcoming, with strong connections to natural materials and systems.”

“We are honoured to have played a part in the development of the Alder Hey Health Campus - a world class pioneer for the treatment of children.”

David Powell, Development Director of Alder Hey Children’s Hospital said: 

“The children and families who use the new cluster development deserve a fantastic place in which to receive their assessment and treatment. The brilliant staff who provide their services are equally deserving. The Cullinan Studio team has understood this and responded magnificently with a building of quality and imagination. The burgeoning Alder Hey Health Campus will be a pioneer for the treatment of children and an instrument for healing.”

The buildings, raised over the car park, drop-off and central pedestrian access point to protect arriving patients, are set against a backdrop of stone gabions and sweeping garden terraces. External walls are clad in rich red-brown weathering steel panels, complimenting the lush green planting with bay windows that balance connection and privacy by being orientated towards the park. This protective shell is there to shield vulnerable patients and gives way to an open welcoming interior made of timber. A robust wooden structure and panel system is revealed and expressed throughout, chosen for its warmth, smell and natural feel, and for its environmental and well-being benefits. Places to wait, be alone or be sociable are connected to views of nature and filled with daylight and natural ventilation. The design approach is underpinned by the need to ensure patient dignity, safety and discretion. Along both sides of the new buildings the bedrooms and consulting rooms have projecting bay windows that offer ‘child-sized’ refuge spaces that shield from the outside world and look towards the new park.

The Catkin Centre will provide a new home for a number of outpatient services including ASD, ADHD, development paediatrics, CAMHS, eating disorders and crisis care. It offers engagement space, quiet rooms, consulting rooms, family therapy rooms, an art/music therapy room, offices and meeting space. Sunflower House will provide a home-from-home for young people with complex and enduring mental health conditions, comprising a 12-bed inpatient mental health unit for children aged 5-13 with the most challenging mental health conditions. One of only six inpatient units for this age group in the country.

Alder Hey will be the first children’s hospital in Europe to be built within a new community park, (concept design by Turkington Martin and Cullinan Studio) – creating a 21st century Children’s Health Campus as a possible blueprint for the future of the NHS.