Medical Architecture has partnered with Laing O’Rourke and Northumberland, Tyne and Wear NHS Foundation Trust for over a decade. This week the Trust saw the completed move into Hopewood Park in Ryhope, Sunderland following phased admissions since the 21st September. This new development on the site of the former Cherry Knowle hospital, completes the final stage of a £60m investment in modernising services South of the River Tyne, along with the completion of their Dementia Care Centre in Sunderland last November.
Hopewood Park is a 122-bed inpatient facility for adults, providing psychiatric intensive care (PICU), acute assessment and treatment, complex care and stepped care services. The new mental health campus provides a safe recovery centred environment with generous and relaxing places to appreciate views to the North Sea coast and surrounding landscape. Urgent care wards with safe enclosed gardens are paired for efficient staffing; these, along with the PICU, share common therapy, amenity and support in a prominent civic-scale facility the Barton Centre at the heart of the development.
© Jennie Webb
This project sets new benchmarks for quality, therapeutic environment and long term value in modern mental health accommodation. Inspired by the place and the name of the area, Ryhope, which in ancient language describes a riven valley cutting sharply through the landscape to the sea, the concept is reflected in the development of the architectural form, place making, landscape and way-finding strategy.
The design concept is formulated, simulated and realised through the use of advanced multi-disciplinary 3D building information modelling (BIM) with links to components from the construction supply chain. An extraordinary level of co-ordination sets the development apart as a leading edge design-build project.
James Duncan, the Trust’s deputy chief executive, said, “Hopewood Park has been designed with care to support service users, and it will be a real pleasure to see how this new building and its staff will help people achieve their goals on their journey to recovery.”
Paul Yeomans, project director for Medical Architecture, said, “We get huge satisfaction in working with service users and staff through years of engagement, design development, sleepless nights and inevitable compromise. Hopewood Park illustrates how worthwhile this effort is. Good design adds immense value to NHS mental health services and to local regeneration.”
