£250k Wolfson Prize seeks concepts to ‘radically improve’ NHS hospitals

The competitors – organised by free markets think-tank Coverage Alternate and the Charles Wolfson Charitable Belief – asks individuals to think about how new hospital design and planning might ‘radically enhance affected person experiences, medical outcomes, employees wellbeing and integration with wider well being and social care’.

Judges will embody Laura Lee, chief govt of Maggie’s, and Robert AM Stern, founding companion of Robert AM Stern Architects. This yr’s open name marks the second time the distinguished prize has centered on the constructed atmosphere. The 2014 competitors, which centered on backyard cities, was gained by URBED director David Rudlin, who proposed granting ‘backyard metropolis’ standing to as much as 40 English cities.

Rudlin’s successful idea was instantly criticised by former housing minister Brandon Lewis, who in contrast it to New Labour’s ‘failed examples of top-down eco-towns’. Nonetheless, by 2017 the federal government had reversed its place – saying plans for 200,000 new properties in a raft of ‘backyard villages’ and ‘backyard cities’ throughout the nation.

Entries to the newest healthcare design prize could embody concepts at any scale, from particular improvements within the hospital to the general campus design. The free-to-enter competitors is open to all specialisms however a ‘important proportion’ of functions are anticipated to come back from the structure and constructed atmosphere sectors. Entries should be deliverable inside an NHS context.

The decision for ideas coincides with a £3.7 billion funding by the federal government in renewing and upgrading NHS hospitals – claimed to be the ‘greatest hospital constructing programme in a era’. It additionally follows polling by Coverage Alternate, which recognized a UK public ‘desire for personal rooms, pure mild and hospitals inbuilt conventional architectural types’.

Ajay Kakkar, chair of the 2021 Wolfson Economics Prize Judging Panel, mentioned: ‘The final 12 months have plainly challenged healthcare programs all over the world. On the similar time, the healthcare and life science communities have confirmed their outstanding means to innovate and adapt.

‘A lot of our healthcare challenges predate the Covid-19 pandemic and can outlast it. Well being programs are more and more treating older, frailer sufferers with complicated wants. However we’ve new applied sciences, diagnostics and well being knowledge which are dramatically enhancing the care they obtain.

‘The hospital will proceed to play a vital function in offering this care. We hope to see visionary concepts, from questions round how wards are run to the design of an entire hospital campus, which problem the established order and are deliverable at tempo and scale.’

Main NHS healthcare initiatives at the moment on the horizon embody Penoyre & Prasad and White Arkitekter’s competition-winning new eye care, analysis and academic facility (pictured) at St Pancras Hospital in Camden, north London. Earlier this month, Leeds Educating Hospitals NHS Belief named the 5 groups shortlisted in its contest for a £600 million pair of latest sustainable hospitals.

Purposes to the 2021 Wolfson Economics Prize should reply the prize’s temporary with 10,000 phrases plus a non-technical abstract of 1,000 phrases. Charts, drawings, maps, tables and hyperlinks to multimedia property might also be included.

The deadline for functions is 5pm on 18 June.

Find out how to apply

Go to the competitors web site for extra data

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