Modern health centre with brick and wooden facade

Modern health centre with lawn and trees

Eastwood Health and Care Centre

Bringing health and social care services together with the use of Wienerberger's Smoked Yellow Multi Gilt Stock bricks

The £15m Eastwood Health and Care Centre offers the Eastwood community access to a wide range of health and social care services under one roof for the first time.

The challenge

The three-storey building is arranged around two external courtyards, allowing a high level of natural daylight and ventilation throughout the building.

The ground floor accommodates a series of bookable rooms for clinics, podiatry, physiotherapy, children's services, adult mental health services, and speech therapy; as well as facilities to support third sector services, and out of hours community use. Four GP practices are located on the first floor, with the reception desks and waiting areas organized around the central atrium. This offer views out to the courtyards, as well as overlooking the activity in the main foyer below.

The second floor is the headquarters of the East Renfrewshire Community Health and Care Partnership and incorporates the latest agile working practices.

There are several elements of the context that combine to form the character of the area. Situated in a low-rise residential area, the defining feature of the site is its proximity to two intersecting railway lines, which enclose it to the north. In addition to the surrounding roughcast houses, the terracotta roofscapes and red brick railway bridges form a rich palette, complimented by the defining landscaped boundaries and extensive mature trees.

Courtyard of modern brick health centre with large windows

Modern asymmetrical windows in modern building

Car park and trees outside large modern health centre

Garden courtyard and modern brick building

The Solution

The variegated Wienerberger Smoked Yellow Multi-Gilt Stock brick that forms the primary external cladding was selected to provide a warm and welcoming tone, while taking reference from the historic railway bridges at the rear of the site crossing Eastwoodmains Road.

This gives the building a solidity and robustness, which serves to create a permanent quality for a building that will serve the community long into the future.

The brick mass is softened by the introduction of timber elements to soffits, window louvers and panels. Windows within the brickwork are formed as punched openings with deep reveals and large glazed panels.