Alder Hey in the Park – designed with a child’s eye

Just a year after the centenary of the completion of the 1914-built children’s hospital which it will soon replace, this autumn will see the opening of a new Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool, dubbed Alder Hey in the Park thanks to its attractive parkland setting. The 270-bedded hospital, designed by architects, landscape architects, and interior designers, BDP, and built by Laing O’Rourke, is located in Springfield Park on Liverpool’s northern fringes, and features a highly striking external design, with the three distinctive ‘fingers’ housing the wards bordered by extensive greenery, and the buildings topped by green undulating roofs. All the inpatient bedrooms, and indeed many other internal spaces, will enjoy parkland views. The new hospital will also reportedly offer some of Europe’s most advanced children’s healthcare. HEJ editor, Jonathan Baillie, reports on the construction of this stunning new healthcare facility, where children’s views were key in shaping the design.

The new Alder Hey in the Park children’s hospital, which will be notable as Europe’s only children’s hospital built in a parkland setting to date, is due to open this autumn, construction having begun in March 2013. Following the new hospital’s completion, and the admission of its first patients, the original Alder Hey Children’s Hospital buildings close by will be demolished, and the part of Springfield Park on which the ‘old’ hospital stood returned to parkland, part of a ‘land swap’ deal concluded with Liverpool City Council, which, with improved entrances and connecting routes across the parkland, should see greater use made of the attractive green space. 

Original buildings’ proposed role