Lucy Brittain
Partner
Lucy has a special interest in the way the natural and built environment shape us as individuals. Her Masters dissertation looked at how the positive effects of landscape can inform architecture to create therapeutic environments and enhance mental wellbeing. By understanding the cognitive and evolutionary principles of landscape preference, we can create restorative settings in buildings and the places in-between.
Lucy was Project Architect on the Maggie’s Cancer Care Centre in Newcastle, which used these ideas to create a place of calm and care for people affected by cancer. She is currently working with the Alder Hey Children’s Hospital in Liverpool on a new Community Cluster and inpatient mental health facility for young people, which brings together a range of clinical services in a therapeutic setting. Cullinan Studio are also working on the redevelopment of the surrounding Springfield Park, creating a holistic healthy setting for the hospital and the surrounding community.
She has worked on a variety of projects, including a cold archive storage facility for the BFI Master Film collection, a library for Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and a range of residential projects.
Project Experience
A restorative oasis in Newcastle
The Maggie’s centre creates a restorative oasis in the centre of the busy Freeman Hospital campus, providing a therapeutic green setting for users and those passing by. The imaginative brief allowed the building to respond directly to its specific context. Supporting people living with cancer the centre, it is designed to appear to emerge from the earth. Two wings angled towards the sun, embrace a sheltered courtyard garden protected on all sides by earth banks planted with flowering perennials and herbs.
The informal, layered setting allows visitors to choose their preferred place and level of interaction, enabling them to feel at home in the building, always with a view to nature.
Cullinan Studio has recently received planning permission to expand their Maggie’s Centre. Over 100,000 people have visited since it opened in May 2013, making it one of the busiest centres in the UK. Subsequently, this is the quickest since opening that a Maggie's centre has needed an extension.
A natural community for health
Alder Hey's vision is for “a parkland community for children.” Our two new buildings form an integral part of the growing Alder Hey Campus; to provide a centre for excellence for children’s health within a newly created landscape park.
Providing a close connection with nature was essential to create a calm, non-clinical setting. Both buildings have an immediately coherent layout, with clear views, which allows independence to the patients yet allows passive supervision from the clinicians and staff.
Understanding Therapeutic Environments
Everyone knows intuitively that it feels good to be surrounded by a natural environment. Research from different disciplines now provides evidence to demonstrate which aspects contribute towards creating a restorative environment, for example, a multi-sensory setting creates ‘effortless fascination,’ improving concentration and lowering blood pressure. Even a short exposure can measurably benefit wellbeing. I am interested how these principles can be used to shape the built environment as well as landscape.