The new £35 million northern headquarters of the Royal College of Physicians will be known officially as The Spine, taking its name from a striking staircase on its north elevation.
On opening in 2020, the 160,000 ft2 building in Knowledge Quarter Liverpool will, AHR Architects says, be ‘one of the UK’s healthiest workspaces for mental and physical wellbeing’, and among the first to achieve the international WELL standard of modern building design. The bottom three and top four storeys will become a 70,000 ft2 centre of clinical excellence for the RCP, with the remaining seven offering ‘flexible, contemporary’ workspaces for organisations in the health, science, and education sectors.
Located within the £1 bn Paddington Village development, The Spine will feature a timber curtain wall, and a ‘unique’ ceramic frit façade, complete with 23 million ‘unique’ voronoi polygons that mimic human skin and ‘react to the local environment to control noise and glare’. It will also boast an internal ‘sky garden’, while each floor will enjoy views of the city thanks to floor-to-ceiling glazing.
Morgan Sindall, working in partnership with Liverpool City Council to deliver the Paddington Village scheme, has instigated the planning process, and last year appointed AHR Architects and Arup to design it and advise on achieving the WELL standard.
