However, she also notes the need for cultural changes to fully leverage these technological advancements.. 5.

‘If they need to crack on with something, they can in a quiet corner if there’s not many patients in,’ she says.‘It’s quite nice to sit down there and have a conversation if you want to.’.

Indeed, the atrium sets the tone for what is undeniably one of Circle Reading’s key architectural features - space.‘Everything about this place is space,’ says Raj Goel.‘There’s nice space everywhere.’.

The facility generously houses five theatres, thirty inpatient and twenty day case beds, fifteen consulting rooms and an extensive rehabilitation department.Describing the process of layout design for the hospital, Wood notes that the more Bryden Wood understood about the hospital and its patients, the more they were able to ‘codify their operations, their adjacencies and their spaces…’ He discusses the fact that Bryden Wood were able to benefit from a considerable amount of consultation and direct input from the professionals who were actually going to be using the facility.

All of that knowledge was then enshrined into a three dimensional design tool, he says, which became like a ‘vocabulary of spaces…’.

Wood also describes how such a level of understanding about the function of the building, led logically to the next step of applying a level of systemization to its construction, in order to underpin it and make construction more efficient.The biggest and most recurring challenge, however, is usually due to new services needing penetrations or alternative routing due to changes to client laboratory equipment.

Labs need a higher air change rate than offices or other building types, which means lots of ductwork to and from the lab.This is exacerbated if there are fume cupboards, as the discharges go to the roof and discharge vertically.

The discharge stacks for these fans can be quite high, so we may have to design roof supports for flues.. One unusual issue we encountered was a vibration requirement for an X-ray machine.This is further evidence of the importance of understanding the purpose of the laboratory equipment being installed early in the lab design process..