As everyone surely knows, getting a halfway decent building commissioned and built by an NHS trust is difficult to achieve, given the normal procurement regime that seems inevitably to lead to the privately-financed de-sign-and-build products of a relatively small roster of big practices. The contrast is stark indeed when a Maggie's Centre, say, lands in the vicinity of a typical large general hospital. But it can be done, given commitment from client and architect. So it has proved at Belfast City Hospital, where a large new acute mental unit by Richard Murphy Architects with RPP Architects breaks the institutional mould with a landscape-led design.
展开▼
