Lime render finish coats for innovative design
As one of Britain’s most innovative design practices, Heatherwick Studio was selected to conceive a Maggie’s Centre at St James’s University Hospital on a site which demands a high degree of ingenuity to create the calm, uplifting environment so important to the people who visit and work in Maggie’s Centres.
The Centre’s innovative design consists of a series of contained gardens that will capture the therapeutic effect of plants and contrast with the more formal surrounding hospital buildings. The design will create a warm, informal interior space as well as an inspiring exterior to encourage positivity among Centre visitors and passers-by.
The buildings of the centre, now partly constructed, also follow this theme and consist of number of interconnecting pods constructed from curving glulam fins which support a green roof above. Womersleys have been pleased to supply the base render Prepbond WP and the self-coloured lime finishes to coat the spaces between the fins on a mock up at Heatherwick Studio.
The building will take the form of a collection of stepped planter elements, each holding a piece of garden, bringing the planting into and over the building itself. Shared and private internal spaces will be playfully created between and within the planters.