The Queensway Medical Centre, on the site of a former ‘burnt out’ public house in Wellingborough, in a ‘challenging’ residential area surrounded by roads and a low-rise shopping centre, ‘marries external security with internal tranquillity’, say its designers, maber architects.
They said: “From the outside, the 250 m2, two-storey building is a robust, traditional cavity wall construction, with Trespa rainscreen cladding on the first floor, yet it opens into a welcoming, double-height glazed atrium housing the entrance lobby and waiting area. These look onto an internal courtyard, created because of the lack of scope for external landscaping.” The building, constructed by Stepnell, houses a large GP practice and a pharmacy, 17 consulting rooms, a minor operation room, and staff facilities. The architects’ specialist interiors team, maber iD, selected furniture, and worked with the client on branding, including signage. On maber’s advice, the site’s original owners, the ‘now defunct’ NHS PCT, acquired neighbouring land to allow additional room for a car park, preventing any compromise on space for patients. Coincidentally, the desktop archaeological study was undertaken by the team who discovered the remains of King Richard III in Leicester, where maber is working on a new visitor centre.
