Benenden Hospital Reception Area 2017. Photography: Copyright © Alex Upton
Location: Benenden, Cranbrook, Kent, UK
Contractor: Willmott Dixon
Photography Client: Structura / Kalwall
Architects: CA Vaughan Blundell QS, Moreton Hayward M&E and Richard Stephens Partnership
Located in the south east county of Kent, Benenden Hospital, an Independent flagship facility for Benenden Hospital Trust, recently underwent a major £45 million redevelopment. The new facilities include operating theatres, single en-suite rooms, an ophthalmic suite, a new outpatient department, procedure rooms and recovery areas.
Benenden Hospital Waiting Room
I was commissioned in late 2017 to photograph the interior of the facility, which features a large new atrium roof glazed in the client Kalwall's unique panels - the same material featured in my photography of the RIBA award winning West Croydon Bus Station. The translucent Kalwall panels allow daylight to permeate the waiting rooms creating a bright, welcoming environment for the patients. These two projects show the potential diversity of the products application and how its specific placement and incorporation into the architecture can contribute both aesthetically and functionally in a variety of ways.
Benenden Hospital Waiting Room
The Interior design services were carried out by the West Midland's based practice Design Buro. Through the layout of the furniture and the application of colour to various features the interior spaces have been simplified aiding the users experience and making it easy to navigate the building. The materials themselves while not all natural reference nature through texture and colour masking the often utilitarian design of hospitals.
Benenden Hospital Reception Area
The parts of the scheme I had access to photograph work really well, they are both spacious and open whilst also accommodating for privacy, with the furniture creating partially secluded zones. The use of two tones of flooring, which are employed to delineate the various pathways through the hospital, help guide the patients to their destination - breaking with the notoriously labyrinth like layouts of older hospitals.
Benenden Hospital Atrium Roof
If you are interested in seeing more architectural photographs of Benenden Hospital's redevelopment and the interior design work carried out there by Design Beru please visit my portfolio in the navigation bar above.