The new Prince and Princess of Wales Hospice brings 21st Century hospice care to the people of Glasgow, a major step forward in the provision of palliative care services, providing the Hospice with the flexibility to develop and improve their services.
Our work focused on creating a world class palliative care environment with a homely and relaxing atmosphere. The vision was to offer patients the quality of life they deserve, in a place that looks and feels like home, and where the clinical and medical assistance sits firmly in the background.
Meetings with staff combined with tours of the proposed site, existing facilities and other provider’s facilities informed the brief and shaped our thinking as we developed the building services strategy. Resilience of service featured heavily throughout our discussions and the Hospice was designed with a robustness of service commensurate with a leading-edge facility.
Our work was carefully co-ordinated with Ryder Architecture to optimise daylight provision into each space without the penalty of glare or overheating. Combining our work with our Fire Engineers has created space with light which facilitates wellbeing and allows ease of way.
The end result is a care environment which breaks with tradition.
Computer simulation helped to provide a services design with several low or zero carbon strategies where reduced running cost and appropriate capital expenditure is in line with a charitable trust. With space heating and hot water being a large demand due to the nature of the use, biomass boilers were designed as the main heating source for the Hospice, to act as a low carbon fuel source, and to benefit financially from the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI).
