RIVER SOAR HEALTH STATION
The River Soar Health Station Projects was a short, yet very intense technical project. It involved designing a walk-in health clinic for students and the general public along Leicester’s river front.
As well as offering health services, the centre would also monitor levels of air pollution and water pollution within the area. The centre would not be a permanent feature so its future adaptability needed great consideration. The site was also very small and awkward, lying on a set of steps leading down to the river that required public through access to be maintained throughout all times of the day. The Health Stations technician would also live in the building so a clear divide between public, private, and semi-private spaces needed to be present.
Plans
Ground Floor
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The ground floor of the station is the truly public space; it has an entrance on both sides providing access straight through the station using a ramp to allow cyclist to the river front. There is also access via the west side of the building via to west side the original outdoor steps.
While the live-in technician will be present on this floor to assist people, a large amount of the stations work will be self-regulated by the patients using the Health Centre Kiosks. These allow people to check, blood pressure levels, BMI's, glucose levels and many other things easily and quickly allowing the technician to carry out other tasks.
Due to the extremely close proximity of the site to De Montfort University student health is a priority for the centre, so a focus on health eating, regular exercise, alcohol/drug abuse and mental health will be programmed into the 'self-service' health kiosks. People will also be able to have free, private consultation with the stations custodian if they require advice on any issues.
A digital wall will also be implemented onto the front exterior wall which will allow passing joggers and cyclists to attach their own personal smart pedometers or phones and upload there information to the centre. This wall will also be able to show videos to pedestrians about maintaining a healthy lifestyle.
First Floor
In order to separate the public ground floor of the building from the semi-private/private upper floors there is a completely separate access point. To access the upper two floors you would have to enter the building from the elevated position of the bridge which runs alongside the site. Once inside there is a bookable meeting room straight ahead and a testing lab to your left, this lab will be multifunctional and be used by the technician for medical purposes such as blood tests, as well as a tests on the pollution of the river and pollution within the air.
In order to access the private residential area of the structure you would exit to the left of the entrance and walk over the roof balcony, across the front of the building and then round and into the study. It is here where the technician of the building will live. Also on this floor will be the resident’s living room, where the staircase to the second floor can be found
Second Floor
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FInally the second floor is entirely resedential, it contains a kitchen, bathroom, double bedroom and a spacious balcony.
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The Beacon
Lighting and 'The Beacon'
Due to the lack of street lights along the riverside, it is an extremely dark place at night. It is also a major route for students from the university to the town centre for nights out. The darkness, combined with the mix of groups of young students a long a riverside makes this quite a hazardous route at night and as such I have designed this health centre to act as both a beacon and a safety point along the river.
The residential areas of the building have been clad externally using a perforated copper jacketed over a glazed framework. This means that when the resident has lights switched on internally the light shines through over the riverside offering light in the area. Also with the centre being open 24 hours, this brightly lit building acts as a point of assured safety, if a person or group of people felt scared or threatened when walking at night they will be able to easily access the brightly lit building and take sanctuary within the health centre
Glass Atriums
During Daylight hours the health centre and the residential half of the building will be able to be completely lit using natural light.
Although the building is situated in the shadows of the trees across the river and the tall buildings either side, 5 tall glass atriums pierce through the building allowing natural light to penetrate through to all layers of the building. As well as the tall atriums there is a glass link way in the first floor that will allow a large amount of light to enter. Also the private residential part of the building is constructed from a glazed steel frame with a perforated cladding, meaning a huge amount of natural light will be able to enter the upper floors of the building.
Construction and Future-Proofing
The Health Station will be constructed from 4 similar sized but completely separate modules. Each module will be able to function independently if it were to be removed from the rest of the structure.
This will open up broader possibilities for the building once its life span as a health centre has been completed. Individual modules could be replaced/added in order to change the function of the building, for example to become completely residential, or all modules could be moved to another location and the whole building easily re-built if a health centre is needed in another part of Leicester, another city, or even another country.
While not compulsory the current 4 module structure is optimised for a multi-functional building due to the two unconnected access points (from the canals towpath and the bridge) that offer complete privacy between the public and private sectors of the building
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