Childrens’ Primary Care Centre

Client: Grosvenor House Group (with Steffian Bradley Architects)

Location: Stanley, County Durham

Area: 5,000 sqm

Value: £18 million

Procurement: Joint PFI Procurement

Richard Henson and Jaime Bishop (both now of Fleet Architects), were respectively project architect and leader of the Primary and Community Care Studio at SBA for the Stanley Primary Care Centre, from initial option appraisal to practical completion. Stanley, County Durham, is a former mining town approximately 10 miles North-West of Durham. The region has a proud coal mining heritage, however, Stanley’s contemporary history is of unemployment and neglect, a recent study indicating that it was within the top 10% of deprived boroughs in the UK.

The new Stanley Primary Care Centre is intended as a catalyst for the regeneration of the town, and a focal point for healthcare excellence within Stanley and the wider district. The Centre is formed by two courtyard blocks: an Adults Primary Care Centre and a Children and Young Persons Health Centre, the latter a specialist Paediatric Hub for the region. The Adult and Children’s Blocks are separated by a dynamic glazed atrium, off which the main departmental entrances to the both Adult’s and Children’s blocks are set. Concrete soffits have been exposed in the maximum amount of rooms providing light airy volumes and deinstitutionalising the healthcare experience.

The external treatment of the Stanley Primary Care Centre was a response to the high quality of historical building stock and a reaction against the insubstantial contemporary development which has since occurred in Stanley. As such robust, quality materials, such as glazed brick, have been specified in order to project a sense of permanence to the building which will serve the community for many years to come.