The Prince of Wales has officially opened the Royal Hospital Chelsea’s new Margaret Thatcher Infirmary, designed by Steffian Bradley Architects to bring “state-of-the-art facilities” to the Chelsea Pensioners.
The residential care and outpatient facility will provide support for 125 of the in-pensioners. Set on the north bank of the Thames, the Royal Hospital Chelsea comprises Grade I listed buildings by Sir Christopher Wren and Sir John Soane. The challenge was to merge the site’s architectural legacy with a 21st Century care facility. Steffian Bradley said: “The resulting Infirmary emphasises the sense of community and shared experience the residents have through their history with the Army. Care has also been taken to incorporate references to the site’s traditional architecture, such as Wren’s monumental colonnade.” Replacing an “outmoded” 1960s building, the new Infirmary features modern facilities for the elderly and infirm veteran soldiers. Each in-pensioner has a bedroom with an en suite bathroom, allowing ladies to be admitted for the first time in the hospital’s history. Visual “clues” provide “intuitive wayfinding”. Insignia designs in the linoleum floor help guide occupants at key points in the internal streets, as do “memory cases”, in which personal photographs and medals can be displayed outside rooms. Winning the contract against 84 architectural practices, Steffian Bradley Architects was appointed concept and healthcare architect. Quinlan & Francis Terry Architects designed the façade. Features to enhance sustainability and patient wellbeing include passive stack ventilation, daylight monitoring, hydronic under-floor heating, lighting design that mimics exterior lighting levels to boost natural biorhythms, strategically placed public areas to increase socialisation and interaction with staff, views to a courtyard, natural ventilation and daylight, and “flexible design modules” that afford residents choice in their personal space.
