We are far too seldom aware of this in everyday life - but there are moments when we have no choice but to deal with it: health is only appreciated when it has been lost. Nowhere else is this as clear as in a hospital.
At the University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust in Stoke-on-Trent, more than 7,000 employees look after up to 900,000 patients a year - and that requires a good, well thought-out structure and above all: space. The original hospital built in 1804 for the region, then still in Etruria, was of course much too small in the long term.
After several moves, additions and conversions, new buildings were finally erected: from 2007, the Royal University Hospital was built by Laing O'Rourke for £370 million (planned with Ryder Architecture) and gradually opened. Today the hospital offers a wide range of specialties and some of the most modern operating rooms in all of Europe.
However, a hospital is not a building like any other - it is an object in which particular attention is paid to making the patient's stay as pleasant as possible. Each of us knows the situation, nobody likes it, and that's a good way to put it in the patient's shoes. The smell of a hospital hits us all immediately – disinfectant, lots of people, chamomile tea, flowers from the bouquets we brought in a vase with 3-day-old water… and that doesn’t make it any better. That's why good ventilation is particularly important here: But it has to be safe, especially in areas for patients with restricted mental and physical abilities.
We at North Staffs, together with our customer at the time for this project, Colt UK, came up with a special solution for this: A removable, manual crank to open the windows with one hand without much effort. In addition, the windows have aluminum struts between the open slats to keep the open area as small as possible.
Some of the approx. 1000 HAHN S9-iVt-05 louvre windows in the escape routes are equipped with motors according to EN 12101-2 and keep the escape routes free for evacuation in the event of a fire.
Photos: © University Hospitals of North Midlands NHS Trust / © HAHN Louvre windows
