The Ward Round Rooms at the Whiteleaf Centre have now been completed.
VGL Ltd collaborated with me on the production design and then manufactured and installed the digitally printed artwork wall coverings.
Tom Cox of Artscape has managed the project from the outset. A big thanks for all his contribution and assistance with the project !
A few images of Amber, Sapphire and Ruby Ward Round Rooms – Opal Ward is still missing – but I will post some images as soon as they come in –
Final designs for the four Ward Round Rooms at the Whiteleaf Centre have been approved.
Samples will now be produced by Vinyl Graphics Ltd in Reading. Once these are approved, the project will go into production.
These are the four artworks –
Monday 6th July 2015, Aylesbury
We had our first Art Commission Phase 2 design meeting at the Whiteleaf Centre today to meet staff working in the four Wards, Opal, Sapphire, Ruby and Amber. Tom Cox of Artscape and myself presented some first draft ideas to staff. We spread out the drawings and some paper models on the meeting room table and asked staff to comment on the work and annotate the drafts for us. This proved a rewarding process – with some of the iconography in the draft designs getting positive approval, whilst others – a definite thumbs down! –
The composite image below shows the Ward Round Rooms, which are found within each Ward Hub. This room is used for Clinical staff meetings and meetings with family and service users. We are proposing to install digitally printed wall coverings to two walls in each room.
Yesterday, I travelled up to Aylesbury to discuss the possibility of being commissioned for more work for the Whiteleaf Centre, which is now open and fully operational. This is the first visit I have made since the Centre opened. Really interesting to see it animated & full of people. Tom Cox from Artcare at Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust who commissioned all the artists for the project accompanied me around the wards and introduced my to staff who discussed with us the impact of the original artwork installations and the possibility of future collaborations with staff and service users to build upon this. Watch this space !
Within the ward hubs there are some high windows, which really demonstrated the effectiveness of the glazing manifestations in producing variation and change within the spaces depending on the weather.
20th November 2014
We have now agreed on which artworks will be delivered as A1 framed prints for the Trust Offices –
I have been asked by Tom Cox, Artscape Project Manager for Oxford Heath NHS Foundation Trust, to prepare some draft artwork, based upon the designs for the Whiteleaf Hospital, which can be printed and framed for display at the Trust’s offices.
These are some of the draft images –
Nightingale Architects have made available some new images of the project at The Whiteleaf Centre, Aylesbury. This particular image is of the large meeting room in the resource centre. The digitally printed artwork manufactured by Guardian is applied to the glazing screen. When the sun is strong, this creates an additional and fleeting, ephemeral extension of the artwork cast in shadow upon the floor and adjacent walls.
Today I received some new images of the Whiteleaf Centre and the interior and am posting them here by kind permission of Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.
The core members of the project team with whom I collaborated on the project are:
Tom Cox – Project Manager, Artscape, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust, Mental Health Division
Mark Bateman – Capital Development Manager, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
Britta MacDonald – Senior Assertive Outreach Worker, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
Michelle Harding – Head of Adult Acute Pathway, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
Neil Flint – Commercial Services Manager, Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust
The Whiteleaf Centre is a £43 million 80-bed Mental Health Centre in Aylesbury. It was completed and opened in February 2014. The building was instigated by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and delivered by Kier Construction and Nightingale Architects. The Landscape Architects were Terra Firma Consultancy.
I was commissioned in November 2012 by Tom Cox, ‘Artscape’ Project Manager for Oxford Health, to develop artwork for glazing and walls which could also work as way finding. This was achieved via digital printing onto optically clear vinyl and vinyl wall covering by Guardian Glazing Films and their sub consultant Bonwyke.
The project was influenced by its site history, firstly as a private residence called Manor House and an archive publication from the Centre for Buckinghamshire Studies, which listed in detail, the contents of the house & garden from its sale at the turn of the Century. The house & grounds eventually transformed into Manor House Hospital, which was completely demolished for the new build. I was also really intrigued by the Ecological Assessment of the former Hospital site which was produced by Capita Symonds for Kier Build in 2011 which referred to the original seed bank of the site being present still in the spoil heaps of the demolition.
The artworks are presented as a series of interlinked vistas and quiet spaces which carry references to the site through the interior of the building. The images also to the influence that gardens, nature & the natural world has within the understanding and treatment of acute mental health. One of the aims of the new building is to provide gardening opportunities for service users to grow things and to provide quiet outside spaces where people can be surrounded by planting and seasonal change.
