Design awards turn to Nightingale Associates for timber

30 September 2009

Two of Nightingale Associates’ projects featuring timber have been shortlisted for a UK construction and design accolade.

The Viking Day Unit in Margate and the University of Oxford’s Magnetoencephalography (MEG) Unit have been shortlisted in the Turning to Timber category of the annual Builder & Engineer Awards.

The Builder & Engineer awards celebrate the finest buildings the construction industry has to offer in 13 categories. The Turning to Timber category is searching for the most iconic timber structures built in the UK today, showing the way forward in timber design, versatility, strength and aesthetics.

University of Oxford’s MEG Unit, shortlisted for the award, is the UK’s first ever purpose-built Magnetoencephalography scanner unit and was designed by Nightingale Associates for the department of psychiatry at the university. Sunny, airy and welcoming the building is designed with sensitivity towards patients with special needs. It also places an emphasis on a positive experience, reflected in the selection of warm, natural internal minerals, furniture and finishes. Skylights in the roof create a sense of space while maximising natural light into spaces filled with research equipment.

MEG Unit, University of Oxford

One of the major challenges of the new MEG facility was the high sensitivity of the scanner to potential interference from environmental sources producing electromagnetic and radio frequency vibration. Consequently, the facility is housed in a single storey building on a magnetically ‘quiet’ site, as well as taking into account a maximum distance between the scanner and building services plant.

The exterior of the building reflects the aim of creating a modern yet sustainable facility. The use of timber cladding, coloured render and flat roofs results in an inviting aesthetic while the external landscaping provides a garden to the waiting area.

The Viking Day Unit in Margate was also shortlisted. The project transformed an existing day unit of six chemotherapy chairs, which was unsatisfactorily situated in space that had originally been designed as a ward day room. Conditions were extremely cramped and patients’ dignity was compromised by, for example, having to wait in the corridor, or share the ward’s WC facilities when asked to produce a urine sample.

Viking Day Unit

The new building had to deliver space without these functional compromises and attempt to radically improve the patients’ experience to encourage an atmosphere that was friendly, calm and healing. The users had a more than usual interest in the design of their place of work, as they had been working for many years with the Cancer Care Appeal fundraisers to pay for the project.

The new unit provides space for ten chemotherapy chairs in a room that, in keeping with the old unit, is connected to a secluded patients’ courtyard. This outdoor space needs to be hidden from view by the public because of some patients’ preference to remove their wigs. Separate cancer care administration areas are required and rooms such as nurse consulting or counselling have all be purpose designed.

The award winners will be announced at a ceremony in Manchester next month.