European Healthcare Design Award for The Catkin Centre and Sunflower House
The Catkin Centre and Sunflower House at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital have been highly commended in the Healthcare Design (Under 25,000sqm) category of the 2024 Salus European Healthcare Design Awards.
The award recognises outstanding healthcare projects worldwide in a community or primary care setting that demonstrate high levels of sustainability and urban integration, transforming the quality of care services in an accessible location, and supporting the integrated needs of staff, patients, and the community.
Underpinning the transparency of the judging process and offering attendees greater insight into the winning projects, the final stage of judging was hosted live online in May, where we presented The Catkin Centre and Sunflower House to the judges.
Designed for patients’ mental wellbeing, The Catkin Centre and Sunflower House pioneers a new approach to clinical buildings by connecting to the natural world.
The Alder Hey project brings together in two connected buildings a range of facilities that were previously scattered across the hospital site and the city of Liverpool. The Catkin Centre provides a new home for outpatient services, while Sunflower House provides a 12-bed inpatient mental health unit for children aged 5-13 with the most challenging mental health conditions.
The new buildings form part of a ‘Health Campus’ at Alder Hey, offering a joined-up approach to the treatment of physical and mental health for children and young adults. The buildings and the spaces between buildings have been designed to accentuate opportunities for planting, walks through landscape and views to create a holistic approach to “health in nature”.
Generous, daylight-filled circulation routes and the use of natural materials in Sunflower House replace the long, narrow stress-inducing corridors of traditional hospitals.