Standing in the shadow of Snowdonia

Speaking at a recent New London Architecture (NLA) seminar examining “Creating sustainable healthcare buildings”, Nightingale Associates architect and studio director Nick Durham described the project’s evolution.

The winner of two “Green Awards” from independent, non-profit-making environmental group The Green Organisation, the Alltwen Community Hospital, or Ysbyty Alltwen in Welsh (the name roughly translates as “white cliff”), was completed in the summer of 2009, and has since been widely praised by patients, staff, and visitors, both for the quality of the design, and for the way the buildings complement the natural surroundings. Constructed for, and operated by, the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board, the hospital replaces an existing Victorian-built community facility nearby, Bron-y-garth Community Hospital in Penrhyndeudraeth, now closed. It is located on a site which Nick Durham told the seminar audience at London’s Building Centre was not only notable for its spectacular scenery, but was also “steeped in history”. Prior to construction commencing, for instance, archaeologists uncovered the remains of a Roman corn drying kiln, while in earlier times the   immediate vicinity was known by a Welsh name which translates, literally, as a “gateway hospital”. The name in fact had no medical connotation, but rather alluded to the fact that the site was once used to provide hospitality to travellers en route to Snowdonia and other parts of North Wales. Also of historical note was that the rocky outcrop immediately behind the site was used for training, during the 1950s, by mountaineering legend Sir Edmund Hillary. Painting a vivid picture of the striking new hospital, Nick Durham explained: “The Ysbyty Alltwen is located considerably above sea level, adjacent to the A487, on the outskirts of the village of Tremadog to the north of Portmadog, just outside the Snowdonia National Park. It stands in the shadow of a cliff face known as Craig-y-Castell, on a rocky, sloping site, in a stunning part of Wales characterised by natural dry stone walls and a challenging topography and geology.” The site was once, he went on to explain, the location for open and cast mine workings, at one stage providing the intersection where the local railway changed from narrow to standard gauge to cater for transportation of slate.

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