Creating a benchmark in healthcare design

Gerflor is the proud supplier of some 3,000 m2 of flooring that met the necessary specification criteria for the new £15 million health complex, which brings together a number of health services into one state-of-the-art health and care centre in the town of Banbridge, County Down, in Northern Ireland. The centre is located on the Banbridge Health Village site, alongside existing polyclinic and GP services. It provides outpatient treatment facilities, a diagnostic suite, and a day care centre for adults with learning and physical disabilities, and is also a centre for Trust administration. 

As it has become a landmark building, we at Gerflor wanted to learn more about the ideology behind its concept, and about the collaboration and commitment needed to create and deliver a purposebuilt facility which is a prime example of excellence in unified, public sector healthcare and social care. 

Banbridge Health & Care Centre was designed by Kennedy FitzGerald Architects in association with Avanti Architects for the Southern Health & Social Care Trust. Developed on the site of the former Banbridge Hospital, it represents the trend for sympathetically re-inventing old, central sites within the community where they are recognised and accessible for pedestrians, bicycles, and public transport. Acknowledged for outstanding architectural merit, Banbridge Health & Care Centre has received a significant number of awards,including RIBA Regional and National Awards. It also scooped the Royal Society of Ulster Architects’ (RSUA) ‘Best Public Building over £3 million’ accolade in the RSUA Design Awards 2016, being described by the judges as ‘a calm, uplifting civic building deftly interwoven into its site, a tangible affirmation of the value of the public domain’.