Award winning week for Alder Hey Children’s Hospital

Alder Hey Children’s Hospital has had an award winning week securing the top prize in two major award schemes.

The project won two special awards at the RIBA North West Awards on 20 April including the coveted building of the year award and the sustainability award.

The judges praised the building saying: “A hugely complex brief and a short delivery timescale were handled superbly well by the design team with an obviously tenacious and astute client team driving forward at every step.”

On 22 April the new Children’s Hospital also won two category awards, community benefit and design through innovation, in the RICS North West Awards. The project then went on to win the highly acclaimed project of the year title, presented to the scheme which demonstrates overall outstanding best practice and an exemplary commitment to adding value to its local area. 

“Alder Hey Children’s Hospital is a remarkable, world-class building. It is not only highly sustainable; the environment is fun, vibrant and engaging and this encourages a sense of wellbeing and reassurance for patients and their families. The thoughtful use of daylight, colour and integrated artwork has created a hospital designed as if through children’s eyes. I didn’t think it was possible to make a hospital a magical place, but Alder Hey has managed it.” Will Rees, Judging Panel Chair and Director at Rees Straw Chartered Surveyors.

Earlier in the week the building also won 3rd prize at the NVTG Building Awards given by the International Federation of Hospital Engineering.

“If we’ve seen it before, it’s not for us” was the challenge set by the Trust’s design vision, which called for a unique paediatric environment that, together with adjacent Springfield Park, would form an integrated children’s healthpark. The Trust also set a target of achieving BREEAM Excellent with the aim of becoming the most sustainable major acute hospital in the UK.

Opened in October 2015, its hilly, undulating profile has made the new building instantly recognisable, even from a distance - a striking identity that stands in deliberate contrast to the typical idea of a hospital and the institutional nature of the existing Alder Hey which it replaces.