Curtain walling, windows and doors by architectural aluminium systems supplier Kawneer have helped to transform a former car park into the Ipswich Hospital’s biggest development for more than 30 years.

The stunning Garrett Anderson Centre features Kawneer’s AA®100 fully capped curtain walling, AA®601 side-hung casement windows, 190 heavy duty and AA®605 thermal swing doors externally as well as AA®100 slope glazed rooflight over the reception. AA®600 Series fixed light screens were used for the critical care bedrooms and facetted security room internally.

These elements were installed by Kawneer-approved sub-contractor JPJ Installations who had to use power suckers and cranes to lift the curtain walling into place above a glazed entrance canopy that sweeps through from the external arrival area to the internal reception area.

Built over three years and four storeys by main contractor Kier Eastern for the Ipswich Hospital NHS Trust’s PFI partner Prospect Healthcare, the £26 million project was designed in consultation with patients and staff, with each area having a dedicated project team.

The end result transforms healthcare for local people and comprises a new accident and emergency department, a critical care centre, day surgery suite, and theatres and beds dedicated to planned or elective care, all over 8,000m².

The new A&E and critical care departments are located on the ground and first floors while a new theatre suite and associated wards take up the second and third floors. Major M&E systems are housed on the ground floor and roof plant rooms.

Named after Elizabeth Garrett Anderson, who was born in Suffolk and was the UK’s first female GP, the centre is constructed in braced steel frame with composite concrete floors.

The façade is a combination of terracotta block, rendered masonry and insulated metal panels, complemented by Kawneer’s glazed curtain walling below and above the entrance canopy and in ribbon strips that run vertically down the whole height of an elevation.

Kawneer’s windows feature in large bays, which run almost the length of some of the elevations and in recessed balcony areas, as well as in ribbon strips on the ground and first floors that cantilever over the ambulance bay corner.

A large number of the Kawneer windows feature bespoke coloured glass vertical fins that echo the coloured glass used in some of the ribbon strips of Kawneer curtain walling.

Architects Nightingale Associates, who have used Kawneer systems before, for their “cost effectiveness”, picked up the scheme at preferred bidder stage from HOK Architects.

Graham Harris, senior director at Nightingale Associates, said: “The Kawneer products allow for the glazed bridge accommodation at the front of the hospital to be expressed, creating a seamless sense of flow from the exterior to the interior of the building. This creates a visual connection from the outside, giving an insight to the interior courtyard and breaking the solidarity of the massing of the scheme.

“The flush finish of the curtain walling against the blockwork emphasises the architectural intention of the pure block massing for the scheme, contrasted with the openness of the reception and waiting spaces.

“Generally the windows tend to be fairly small, punched hole-type windows which articulate the solidity of the accommodation. They define the clear geometry of the blockwork while permitting significant spaces internally to benefit from good levels of daylight.”

John Clarke, managing director of JPJ Installations said: “The project was challenging, especially at design stage, due to the complex specification of products but we worked closely with the project architects and the main contractor to provide the desired products within budget and within the project programme.”


Email: kuk.kawneer@alcoa.com