The proposed Cancer Treatment Centre will be the first step of a masterplan to transform Guy’s Hospital in South London. Defining the corner of the site, it sets up the geometry for a permeable site with significant new green spaces.
The RSHP proposal is designed around patient pathways and is flexible enough to adapt to change. The idea is to make an unavoidably large building seem like a comparatively small, human scale building with simple, easy patient choices.
Within the 14 storey building three areas, arranged as ‘care villages’ are arranged one of top of another. From the entrance, the patient will be able to take the lift to one of the three villages: Chemotherapy, Radiotherapy and a One-Stop area. Each incorporates all the elements that a patient may use in a single visit, such as outpatients, imaging and day surgery. Each village is entered via a ‘village square’. Accommodation is then arranged on two or three subfloors or mezzanines so that visitors can look up and see where they need to go. Each village will have a distinct identity incorporating landscaped balcony gardens.
Within each village non-clinical, homely interaction spaces are provided that deliberately blend staff and patient interaction, but provide an appropriate degree of privacy. The treatment areas are efficient, ergonomic, functional and safe, in order to maximise clinical gain and patient care. Across the centre the proposal focuses on improving the user experience, providing patients and staff with views and light, making a series of inclusive spaces with straightforward way-finding and patient centred facilities.
The building is designed to actively support change in clinical and accommodation needs over time. Flexibility and adaptability are key parts of the design, structure and services strategy.
