Adam Richards Architects has completed St. Raphael’s Health & Wellbeing Centre at Mayfield School in East Sussex, England. The purpose-built facility brings together medical treatment, counselling, and teaching within a single building dedicated to pupil wellbeing.

The project combines a cross-laminated timber (CLT) structure with a natural limestone masonry outer wall. Developed with Polycor using a new stone brick product, the building is understood to be the first completed project to pair CLT with natural limestone brick.

Reorganising care within the campus

Mayfield School is a Catholic boarding and day school for more than 350 girls, centred on a restored medieval palace. Adam Richards Architects has worked with the school since 2019, initially developing a feasibility study and campus masterplan. St Raphael’s Health & Wellbeing Centre is the first realised element of this wider plan.

Commissioned in spring 2020, the project replaces the school’s former infirmary, which was no longer fit for purpose. The new building was developed to support both physical and mental wellbeing while providing a more coherent and discreet healthcare environment for pupils aged 11–18.

The healthy building approach began with the brief: to create a new kind of school health facility that supports mental wellbeing alongside physical health. The centre brings together medical treatment, counselling, wellbeing check-ins, and informal teaching in one calm, accessible, and non-threatening environment. Used daily by up to 10 percent of pupils, the building has become a normal, trusted part of school life rather than a place visited only in crisis.

Operational since September 2024, the centre accommodates medical treatment, counselling, wellbeing check-ins, life skills education, and personal development. Facilities include counselling rooms, a treatment room, an isolation room, a four-bed dormitory, and reception and kitchen spaces.

Site strategy and spatial organisation

The building helps reorganise this part of the campus into a more coherent ensemble. Its sculptural form draws on references to Renaissance fortifications and medieval monasteries.

To the south, a planted courtyard is framed by a long glazed corridor that forms the cloister-like circulatory spine of the building. A deep canopied bench provides shelter from prevailing winds while creating a calm threshold between interior and exterior spaces.

At the centre of the plan, a communal kitchen forms the building’s shared social focus. The space is anchored by a long table designed by Adam Richards and handmade by Sussex joinery workshop Fisher Morrison. The kitchen opens onto a secluded garden overlooked by the treatment and counselling rooms. The garden creates a quieter space within the centre, organised around light, enclosure, and planting.

A sequence of thresholds and smaller transitional spaces allows pupils to move gradually from the activity of the wider campus into quieter and more secluded spaces. In addition to its healthcare functions, the building also accommodates informal day-to-day use as a place for pupils to pause, meet, or spend time away from the main school environment.

To the north, a long limestone wall frames the existing school buildings behind it while forming a gateway to the campus and establishing a boundary to the wider landscape. The reception area overlooks this threshold, reinforcing the building’s role as a point of arrival and transition within the campus.

The single-storey building occupies a previously underused part of the campus formerly used for temporary portacabins and parking. Its placement preserves the historic core of the school while reorganising access across this part of the site. The scheme introduces wheelchair-accessible entry, clearer pedestrian routes, direct ambulance access, and close proximity to the sports pitches.

Interior atmosphere and material strategy

The interiors draw on domestic spatial qualities, extending the language of care beyond conventional clinical settings. This approach also informed the building’s material and atmospheric strategy. Natural, non-hazardous materials such as wood, limestone, and lime mortar reduce environmental impact while creating a warmer and more reassuring setting.

Exposed timber, soft daylight, rounded details, and acoustic treatment help make the building hygienic without feeling institutional. Curved forms and rounded detailing, from lighting to built-in seating, reference the geometry of the cloister while moderating acoustics and spatial transitions.

Adam Richards Architects also sourced the furniture for the project to maintain consistency in material quality, durability, and tone throughout the building.

Sustainability and construction

St Raphael’s is constructed from natural, non-hazardous materials and designed as an all-electric building, addressing both embodied and operational carbon through its material and servicing strategies.

Internally, sections of the CLT structure remain exposed, revealing the wood grain and expressing the building’s tectonic language while reducing the need for additional finishes and associated material use. The timber structure also contributes to a warmer, less institutional atmosphere within the healthcare spaces.

The external walls are formed from Polycor limestone bricks laid in lime mortar. The limestone brick product was dimensioned to relate to the limestone of the school’s listed gatehouse and Old Palace, while the lime mortar supports future disassembly and potential reuse. According to Polycor, the limestone bricks are 86 percent less carbon intensive in manufacture than conventional fired clay bricks and are fully reusable and recyclable.

Air-source heat pumps provide heating and hot water, while mechanical ventilation with heat recovery contributes to the building’s thermal and operational performance.

Adam Richards of Adam Richards Architects said: ‘With St. Raphael’s, our ambition was to create a building that is both technically progressive and deeply contextual, while responding to the historic setting. The project demonstrates how architecture can support wellbeing. Natural materials and soft daylight create a calm atmosphere, while the plan balances privacy with openness and connects every room to light, air and garden space. Sustainability is embedded throughout: the CLT structure lowers embodied carbon, the limestone can be reused, and the building is fully electric. This is a building that is open and welcoming, but also safe and consoling.’