St Andrew’s Hospice in Airdrie, some 12 miles to the east of Glasgow, has reopened after a £9m refurbishment designed and managed by award-winning Newcastle-based architectural practice, JDDK Architects Ltd.

The original 80’s building has retained its existing façade but been transformed internally to create 21 single bedded rooms with en-suite facilities together with three multi-occupancy rooms. All rooms now have direct access to the surrounding gardens, with some rooms providing space for relatives to stay overnight whilst a separate patient entrance has been created providing discreet admission to the wards. During the year long project, undertaken by CCG Construction of Glasgow, the hospice’s patients were transferred to nearby Wester Moffat Hospital.

JDDK Project Architect and Associate Director, Nicky Hodgson, explained the work, “The original building was opened in 1986, with mainly shared bedrooms and facilities which were no longer deemed fit for purpose by modern hospice standards.”

“The internal layout had split the hospice into three working wards with support services for each, whilst the communal patient bathrooms took up most of the ‘prime’ external wall locations which could alternatively have provided external views and access. There was a lack of level access for wheel chairs and beds to be easily moved whilst the staff areas, particularly in the basement were fragmented and underused.”

The JDDK design has rationalised the patient area into two working wards with ward facilities relocated in internal spaces allowing the external walls to become windows and doors from individual patient rooms. Support services, including laundry facilities, staff areas, offices and counselling rooms have all been rationalised and relocated into different areas to maximise the available space for patients, relatives and staff.

Externally, four small extensions include an extension to bedrooms, new staircases to first floor spaces and a surrounding pergola to provide solar shading.

BIM Lead Matt Holmes commented “The project brief called for a digital survey model to be procured and JDDK developed the brief for this specific piece of work to allow the resultant model to be used seamlessly by the team throughout the design phase of the Hospice. JDDK worked closely with the structural, mechanical and electrical engineers to produce digital Revit models for each discipline, federated by the architects and then used as the basis for all the construction drawings to ensure this complex project was fully coordinated prior to starting on site.”