The scheme, a conversion, refurbishment and extension of an existing Grade II listed Victorian school building dating back to 1897, into a Primary Care facility for the patients of the Charnwood Community Medical Group in Loughborough has been shortlisted for the 2013 Leicestershire PROCON Awards.
Rosebery Street medical Centre and Pharmacy vehicular entrance
Closed in 2006, the original Rosebery Street School had been boarded up and although sold at auction, after a number of failed planning applications for conversion into residential uses, the site was re-marketed. Due to the exacting demands of NHS criteria, most modern facilities are purpose built on green field or cleared sites, however, following a lengthy site search, the redundant former School became the only viable site opportunity within the densely populated practice catchment area. Up until then the practice was working out of converted houses, the nearest being on the adjacent Storer Road.
Rosebery Street Medical Centre, pedestrian entrance
In terms of spatial similarities, primary care development and Victorian school design, has much in common. Simplistically both contain a large central focus be it the school hall or waiting room, in turn being surrounded by lesser spaces in the form of modular class rooms or clinical spaces.
Therefore, in terms of adaptation the principle was quite straight-forward, with the design ordering the accommodation in such a way as to enhance the day to day delivery of primary care services, maximising staff / patient segregation and privacy whilst creating a clearly zoned layout.
Former victorian school hall and now waiting area.
The resulting scheme saw the retention of much of the design clarity of the original design, with some subdivision, but in the main a very sympathetic reuse of the existing fabric. Simplistic, and in some cases the pristine forms of the additions and interventions integrate with the existing fabric with graceful elegance, leaving the historic building as intact and uninterrupted as possible.
Canopy at the medical centres main entrance
Attention to scale, proportion and detail is evident throughout the scheme, creating a unified development from contrasting elements. Contemporary colour schemes, bold in places create emphasis, whilst the geometrical carpeting, references the original parquet floor patterning and that of the coffered ceiling to the main hall.
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