Hasta La Ideas

If you glance over the label on any skincare product sitting on your shelves, you’ll most likely find a long list of chemical or synthetic ingredients. Resolutely taking the opposite approach is Brooklyn-based S.W. Basics. To…

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This sexual health clinic by London studio Urban Salon features an enormous green cat on the wall and a mobile referencing sexual organs.

Slotted beneath two railway arches in south London, the Burrell Street Sexual Health Centre was designed by Urban Salon to provide a non-clinical environment that encourages more people to come in for a check up.

The architects worked alongside artists Arnold Goron, Allison Dring and Martin McGrath to add a series of colourful graphics and motifs. The two suspended mobiles hang above the heads of patients in the waiting room, while abstract wallpapers based on sexual puns and imagery cover the ceilings in the consultation rooms.

“The brief was to create a welcoming clinic, which had a look and feel that was very different from the standardised hospital environment to help break down taboos around the nature of the clinic,” explains the studio.

The reception and waiting areas are positioned behind a new glass facade, which is screened with graphics to protect the privacy of patients. A long table stretches across the space and offers coffees and newspapers.

A looping double-height corridor leads through to 16 consultation rooms, each with blackboard-clad doors that allow practitioners to chalk their names across the surface.

Extra rooms for counselling are tucked away at the back, plus stairs lead up to a 120-seat teaching auditorium on the first floor.

Other clinics to feature on Dezeen include one in a Japanese shopping centre and one designed to look like a cluster of smaller buildings. See more clinics and health centres on Dezeen »

Photography is by Gareth Gardner.

Here’s some more information from Urban Salon:

Urban Salon’s Burrell Street Sexual Health Centre opens for business

Urban Salon’s first project for the NHS, the Burrell Street sexual health centre has been completed and has opened to the public. The clinic is run by Guy’s and St Thomas’ Trust in London.

The project came out of a design competition that engaged designers and architects from outside the healthcare specialism. The brief was to transform two railway arches in Burrell Street, Southwark and create a welcoming clinic, which had a look and feel that was very different from the standardised hospital environment to help break down taboos around the nature of the clinic.

The spaces at the front of both arches are used for registering and waiting for appointments. The waiting room is welcoming and informal and features a communal table for visitors to read newspapers and drink complimentary coffee. Located next to the full height glazing to the street, the waiting area incorporates graphics that strike the balance between allowing views into reception from the exterior and protecting visitors’ privacy as they sit in the waiting room.

Circulation in each arch is arranged around the central pier that supports the two arches, creating a central circulation loop that is double height to maximise natural daylight and create a generous space. The consultation rooms are located off this space and the doors to the consultation rooms are finished in blackboard laminate that is used by clinical staff to write their names on in chalk when in use.

To put visitors at ease, the consultation rooms are divided into two separate areas – a warm and conversational space at the front to encourage discussion that can be screened off from the clean and fresh clinical section at the rear that is used for examination. In addition to the consultation rooms, there are two rooms used by health advisors for counselling. Located away from the busier parts of the clinic, these rooms have sofas, lower light levels and Eames Elephants chairs for when children are present with their parents.

Throughout the clinic, we commissioned art to create a positive and welcoming atmosphere that puts users at ease. In the waiting room, the artist, Arnold Goron created two suspended mobiles comprising forms that are reminiscent of sexual organs. The pieces gently rotate and are visible from the street. Each of the sixteen consultation rooms feature brightly coloured ceiling art developed by artist/designer, Allison Dring. These artworks cover the entire ceiling and take sexual puns and imagery as their theme. The ceiling art is designed to be read from the examination couch and to slowly reveal themselves to the viewer. Graphics designed by Martin McGrath that references the ceiling art and provides a friendly tone of voice is used for wayfinding signage.

A 120 seat auditorium has been created on the first floor for use for teaching, internal meetings and to hire out to outside organisations. The ceiling of the auditorium is curved to fit the curve of the arch.

Since its opening, the clinic has proved popular attracting high numbers of visitors and has generated positive feedback. Comments have included ‘A lovely new building’, ‘I was impressed with the waiting room as it had a welcoming atmosphere unlike most hospital waiting rooms’, and ‘interesting cat theme…’.

The post Burrell Street Sexual Health Centre
by Urban Salon appeared first on Dezeen.

Japanese architect Kazuhiko Kishimoto has combined a doctor’s surgery and a courtyard house in a bulky building with tapered concrete feet (+ slideshow).

Located in Kanagawa, Japan, Lifted-Garden House was designed by Kazuhiko Kishimoto with a two-storey clinic on one side, a first-floor doctor’s apartment opposite and a courtyard and roof terrace inbetween.

“The clinic and dwelling place are placed across from each other with the inner courtyard in the middle, however the direction of the eyes would not meet since they are on different levels,” says the architect.

The exterior walls feature a mixture of bare concrete and timber slats, with the solid concrete pillars supporting the overhanging first floor.

The courtyard beyond is filled with trees and shrubs, while the first-floor terrace is covered in timber decking and features plants that sprout from pockets of gravel.

This deck can be accessed from both the apartment and the clinic, plus its timber surface continues into the building to create a consistent ground plane.

White-painted bars divide up the spaces within the residence, continuing the vertical rhythm of the timber slats on the facade.

The clinic features frosted glass screens that partially cover the windows, creating privacy while allowing views out to the greenery.

“We expect the trees to grow big and to provide nice leafy shade in summer, making a place of relief for the doctor and patients,” says Kishimoto.

We previously featured another house by Kazuhiko Kishimoto, with a rear facade that slides open to reveal a graduated terrace with a sweeping view of the sea.

Earlier this year we published a two-storey house that has been combined with a pet shop, also located in Japan.

See all our stories about Japanese houses »
See more stories about medical architecture »

Photography is by Hiroshi Ueda.

Here’s a project description from the architect:

This is the complex building with clinic on the first floor and the doctor’s dwelling place on the second floor. With the tree planting that bring better feeling to patients in the inner courtyard, they can be viewed from the lobby and entrance of the clinic.

Furthermore, as the trees can also be seen from outside of the building through the deck, people walking by should also be able to feel the seasons change.

The dwelling place on the second floor is placed as if it is floating above the parking space. The dwelling place is L-shaped opposite to the clinic. The clinic and dwelling place are placed across each other with the inner courtyard in the middle however the directions of the eyes would not meet since they are in the different levels.

The roof of the clinic is an open area as the rooftop garden. Various types of plants and trees are established on the stair-like wood deck with different levels. The floor of the dwelling place continuing flat to wood deck is the outcome of the careful consideration into details.

The deep and low canopy top makes the proportion of the beautiful building. It also relates immensely to producing the sense of openness to the rooftop. We expect the trees to grow big and to provide nice leafy shade in summer, making a place of relief for the doctor and patients.

The post Lifted-Garden House by
Kazuhiko Kishimoto/acaa appeared first on Dezeen.

Grilled corn on the cob is a summer BBQ staple, but fresh corn “off” the cob can be even more versatile, adding color and sweetness to any dish from breakfast to dinner. Providing an alternative to the cumbersome, messy and semi-risky method of…

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A bandage pack containing a bone marrow donor registry kit has won a White Pencil at the D&AD Awards (+ movie).

Help! I’ve Cut Myself and I Want to Save a Life kits, which can be bought over the counter, contain plasters and bandages for covering small cuts, as well as cotton swabs. A small amount of blood from a cut can be caught on a swab and posted to a marrow donor registry in a pre-paid envelope, which also comes in the simple green and white package.

Graham Douglas, a member of creative agency Droga5, came up with the idea after his twin brother was diagnosed with Leukaemia and an unknown bone marrow donor saved his life.

“Unfortunately, the marrow donor registry is one of the most underrepresented donor programs in the world,” says Douglas. “It’s no wonder really – most people think registering as a marrow donor is painful and complicated, when really all it takes is a couple of drops of blood.”

Douglas’ idea aims to catch potential donors when they are already bleeding, and give them all the necessary components to send their sample to a donor registry easily.

He set up the scheme with pharmaceutical company Help Remedies and international marrow donor registry DKMS, and registrants have tripled as a result.

Help Remedies create colour-coded medicine packets named after symptoms rather than ingredients, for example paracetamol labelled Help! I’ve Got a Headache.

The annual D&AD Awards honour exemplary design and advertising projects. One White Pencil is awarded each year to reward creativity for social good.

Other winning projects at this year’s D&AD Awards, which took place earlier this week, include Thomas Heatherwick’s Olympic Cauldron, BarberOsgerby’s Olympic Torch and the new UK Government website.

Last year, Apple was named best design studio of the pasty fifty years at a special ceremony commemoration the awards’ 5oth anniversary, while D&AD president Neville Brody described plans to remove creative subjects from the school curriculum in the UK as “insanity”.

More medical design we’ve featured includes Christmas stockings filled with blood for donation and a range of pill containers by Yves Behar.

See more design for health »
See more stories about D&AD »

The post Help! I Want to Save a Life by Graham Douglas
for Help Remedies and DKMS appeared first on Dezeen.