A wide range of Altro flooring and walling has been used to create a homely atmosphere with the ‘wow’ factor in a new birthing unit at Worcestershire Royal Hospital. The birthing pools supplied by Active Birth Pools, won a Highly Commended award for their product in the 2015 BBH Awards.
The Meadow Birth Centre is a former antenatal ward and maternity triage which has been converted into four en-suite birthing rooms called Poppy, Cornflower, Daisy and Violet.
The facility is run by experienced midwives and offers a comfortable environment where birth is treated as a ‘normal’ process, without intervention, rather than a medical one. Mothers-to-be can also adjust lighting and choose music for the birth.
Meadow Birth Centre has been designed to look and feel homely, colourful and bright, helping everyone involved to feel comfortable and relaxed throughout the process. This style of birthing unit is relatively rare, but is becoming more popular throughout the UK.
A selection of Altro flooring and Altro Whiterock hygienic wall cladding was used to fulfil the hospital’s design requirements to combine original and striking aesthetics with practicalities.
Altro Whiterock Chameleon wall cladding was chosen to add stunning, bright blocks of high-gloss colour in birthing rooms, corridors, kitchens and en-suite bathrooms. These bursts of colour were used alongside Altro Whiterock White to create unusual and striking designs.
Altro Whiterock is a cost-effective sheet extruded from a high-quality PVCu polymer. It is easy to clean, impact resistant and grout-free and meets all current EU Directives on health and hygiene.
Altro Whiterock Chameleon offers vibrant solid colours, or mor- natural tones, in a high-gloss finish, allowing for bold designs or more muted interiors in a variety of customer-facing environments.
Safety flooring was a must for the birthing unit, and Altro Aquarius – a specialist solution developed specifically for use in wet and dry areas, for shoe and barefoot use - was ideal for this environment which sees midwives, other staff and visitors plus mothers in and out of birthing pools with bare feet.
Altro Aquarius is an innovative flooring suitable for any type of shoe, including hard and soft soled, rubber and trainers, as well as bare feet. Altro Aquarius revolutionises product selection. Users no longer have to assess the risk of slipping to those in shoes or barefoot and whether to install studded or standard safety flooring. Altro Aquarius caters for all these requirements, with one product that can eliminate the risk.
Altro Zodiac Smooth flooring was used in the unit’s corridors. It features tonal neutrals that work together, as well as vibrant, on-trend colours, many of which combine well with Altro’s wall cladding range palettes. Characterised by its monolithic look, Altro Zodiac is solid and reassuring, while offering enough complexity to deliver discrete and sophisticated installations with light and dark tonal areas where required.
The non-directional design contributes to ease of installation. It is easy to maintain and can be welded to provide a hygienic surface, making it ideal for areas where infection control and high standards of cleanliness are required.
Pinnacle Flooring was appointed to install the products. Spokesman, Aaron Jennings, said: “We have only relatively recently added wall cladding to our portfolio, so the installation in the new birthing unit was a very exciting challenge for us.
“We used 50sq m of Altro Whiterock Chameleon in total, in four colours to match each of the four birthing rooms. They were Moulin Rouge (red), Eau de Chic (pale green), Ocean Deep (dark blue), and Key Lime (bright green). Alongside this we used 70sq m of standard white Altro Whiterock.
“In the birthing rooms we laid 200sq m of Altro Aquarius - again in four different colours to match each scheme. These were Tern, Salamander, Puffin and Swan, which are all muted colours.
“In the corridors, we installed 150sq m of Altro Zodiac Smooth flooring, in two colours - Hologram and Meteor, which are both greys.
Meadow Birth Centre was built by Millane Contract Services.
