Architect behind five-storey adaptable extension

The Core Visual

Hawkins Brown has been picked to design an extension for the Evelina London Children’s Hospital in central London.

The scheme is part of a £250m expansion plan which the Lambeth hospital is rolling out with contractor Morgan Sindall.

The architect is working with Bouygues’ development arm Linkcity which was named preferred developer of the so-called Triangle site near the Thames.

The five-storey building is part of a wider revamp of the complex by Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. Other plans include an outpatients building.

NBBJ is the architect advising the trust.

The Evelina opened next to St Thomas’ - where the prime minister was recently nursed back to health - in 2006 in a part-passively ventilated building designed by Hopkins which was shortlisted for the Stirling Prize. The £60m facility was caught up in controversy when patients and their families complained that temperatures inside hit 32C in the summer. The following year it was fitted with a rooftop chiller unit.

The Triangle campus will include research and teaching facilities, surgical theatres and imaging suites for children and young people from across south London and south-east England. 

Adaptability over time was a key driver, said the trust which also said the project would create significant opportunities for the advancement of innovation in treatments and technologies.

The project will provide increased capacity for the existing children’s hospital by delivering a generic shell-and-core building that enables fit-out flexibility for healthcare and potentially co-located complementary research and teaching facilities.