The Oriel – Moorfields Eye Hospital

Health-promoting materials and daylight
Using colours and materials inspired by natural landscapes as starting point, the material and colour scheme aims to create an atmosphere that is calm and appealing.

The interiors colour scheme works together with the lighting concept and natural daylight to strengthen sightlines, focal points and visual comfort. In this way the colour scheme is used to improve navigability and bring clarity to the building’s organisation.

Light, both natural and artificial, plays a crucial role in the creation of sustainable built environments and in endorsing people’s health and wellbeing. The lighting strategy for the Oriel has been designed focused on users’ needs, a concept that integrates daylight and electric light and takes into consideration the person, the task and the context in the best possible way.

The art is also an important element in creating a dynamic environment with variation between public and clinical environments and between the floors.

The atrium – the heart of the building
The building’s heart and social meeting hub, the atrium, is designed to create an inviting public space which welcomes everyone. Within the atrium rises the Oriel, which will contain spaces for patients to wait and for staff to meet, study and collaborate.

The design process for the atrium consider several areas, including levels of brightness, acoustics and wayfinding. It has natural and fair-faced materials mostly in wood.

By giving the atrium a distinctive tactile character, a contrast is established as the patients move across the plan, between the enclosed and controlled environments of the departments and the more public and tactile environment of the oriel and atrium.

Outdoor environments and roof terrace
The landscape design allows people to move freely, and to create spaces for both social activities and rest. A wide variety of plants have been chosen to add biodiversity and recreational values to the site.

The roof terrace allows a wide variety of activities. Different spaces allow for working outdoors, outdoor teaching, relaxing, urban gardening and social events. Vegetation is used to create a series of outdoor rooms. The aim is to create an outdoor environment that maximises the health benefits and at the same time utilises the ecosystem services provided by the urban nature. By doing so the project will not only contribute positively to the users of the roof terrace, but also to the site and the surrounding city, in order to reach the LEED Platinum Certification criteria.

The new eye-health centre would be within London’s Knowledge Quarter – an area which has one of the highest densities of knowledge based, cultural and scientific businesses anywhere in the world.