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  • Integrated Field decorates children's hospital in Thailand with slides and a pool

    Design studio Integrated Field has created colourful arched interiors filled with animals and clouds to provide an enjoyable experience for children at a hospital in Samut Sakhon, Thailand.Playful touches in EKH Children’s Hospital include a bright yellow slide that spirals through the reception and animal shapes above hospital beds and light-up constellations that act as night lights.

    A yellow slide spirals through the entrance
    EKH Children’s Hospital has been shortlisted for leisure and wellness interior of the year at Dezeen Awards 2020.

    Integrated Field wanted the young visitors to the medical facility to be put at ease in what can be a scary and unfamiliar place.

    Waiting rooms have play areas and soft benches
    The designers put fun elements, such as clouds above an indoor swimming pool and soft play areas in the waiting rooms, to help distract children who could be nervous or feeling unwell.
    “Imagine being a kid dreading going into the hospital, the slide will definitely make you stop crying,” said the studio.
    “The waiting area of each clinic is designed into a playground, which becomes something of a burden for the parents when having to convince the kids to leave the hospital.”

    Slides make hospital visits so fun sometimes children don’t want to leave
    An indoor swimming pool adds to the fun, with arched windows that form circular reflections in the water and white clouds decorating the walls against a sky-blue backdrop.
    In the pharmacy, the play area is designed so that parents can easily keep an eye on their charges when they’re waiting at the counter.

    The rooms are themed around animals such as rabbits
    Arches above doorways and alcoves and rounded seating areas were all designed with a child’s perspective in mind, and these architectural elements were scaled to their height.
    Rooms are painted in soft pastel tones, including pink, blue and yellow.

    Ater Architects creates friendly interior for a children’s clinic in Kyiv

    “The pastel colour tone encourages the children’s use of imagination,” Integrated Field told Dezeen.
    “As a kid, we all create our own imaginary world when we are experiencing a space for the first time,” it added. “Each specific colour refers to a specific animal representing each zone, such as sky blue for whales.”

    Ceiling decorations double as nightlights
    Rooms for overnight stays are given animal themes to make them more appealing – Whale, Turtle, Lion and Rabbit Constellation.
    The animal’s outline is picked out on the ceiling so that it is visible during the day. At night, soft lightbulbs and glow in the dark strips pick out a constellation of stars that acts as a comforting nightlight.

    Arches feature in the hospital’s bathrooms
    Lighting in all of the hospital rooms and corridors is also designed to be soft, rather than the harsh fluorescent lights usually found in hospital settings.
    In the hospital bathrooms, the girls’ toilets are tiled pink and the boys’ yellow. Sinks and urinals are set into arched alcoves, with half of the facilities placed at a child’s height for easy access.

    The facade is also decorated with animals
    On the exterior facade, pastel-coloured metal screens have perforations that form the shape of animals.
    “As adults, we find ourselves amazed if not a bit jealous by the mesmerising variety and development of children’s toys or even snacks these days,” said the studio.
    “EKH Children Hospital will change everyone’s perception about what the space of a children’s hospital can be.”
    Integrated Field was founded in 2011 and is based in Bangkok.
    Other colourful children’s hospitals include a hospital in Brisbane with a colourful facade and a layout inspired by trees, and a brightly coloured children’s outpatient clinic in Kyiv that is also designed to be deliberately un-threatening.
    Photography is by Ketsiree Wongwan.
    Project credits:
    Owner: Ekachai HospitalInterior architect: Integrated FieldArchitect: S:CSBLandscape architect: S:CSBLighting designer: Nopporn SakulwigitsinthuEnvironmental graphics: Integrated FieldStructural engineer: S:CSBElectrical engineer: S:CSBSanitary engineer: S:CSBMain contractor: Adisorn ConstructionInterior contractor: Open Interior, PansinSignage contractor: D.R. Advertising

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  • Arched precast concrete panels form North Perth House by Nic Brunsdon

    Precast concrete panels punctuated with swooping arches make up this family home in Perth, Australia, designed by architect Nic Brunsdon.Nic Brunsdon squeezed the two-storey house onto a tight plot of land for a family keen to live closer to the city of Perth and all its amenities – even though it meant downsizing from their former property.

    Working with a restricted budget, the architect and his eponymous studio decided to use precast concrete panels as the main building material.

    “By using this commercial construction system as the main conceptual organising principle, the project was able to gain significant budget and time savings, while maintaining legible design integrity and innovation in housing type,” the studio said.

    North Perth House comprises eight precast concrete panels that are arranged in a grid-like formation. The ground floor has a sequence of four panels that run horizontally from east to west.
    “On the ground floor these panels demarcate layers of privacy from the street front back towards the rear of the property, each signifying a threshold leading deeper into the private life of the house,” explained the studio.

    On the first floor are another four panels that have been turned 90 degrees to run perpendicularly from north to south.
    These arches slot neatly into notches that have been made in the concrete panels on the ground floor.

    The concrete panels are punctuated with arches – a shape that one of the clients was particularly fond of as it brought back childhood memories of the arched doorways that appeared in their grandmother’s home.
    Narrow arching doorways connect different living spaces throughout North Perth House. On the ground floor, these arches have been made to sit in line with each other so that there are clear sightlines from the front to the rear of the home.

    The larger arches form windows or striking decor features. For example, one has been filled with bookshelves, while another has been inlaid with warm-hued timber to create a dramatic headboard in the master bedroom.
    Timber is one of the three materials that Nic Brunsdon opted to apply throughout the interior – it has also been used for the cabinetry in the kitchen, staircase balustrades and sideboards.

    Concrete has then been left exposed across the walls and floor, while insulated polycarbonate sheeting has been fitted in some of the windows to diffuse the harsh sunlight.

    Arches puncture floors and walls of Glebe House by Chenchow Little Architects

    Pops of colour in North Perth House are provided by a selection of contemporary artworks.
    “The simplicity of the design belies the complexity of the resulting spaces that are created; spaces that are compressed and dark, high and washed, raw and unfinished, and rich and intimate,” added the studio.

    Nic Brunsdon is based in Perth’s South Freemantle suburb. The architect is longlisted in the hospitality building category of this year’s Dezeen Awards for his project The Tiing – a boutique hotel in Bali that features rugged concrete walls that were cast against bamboo.
    Its 14 guest rooms are each shaped like funnels, directing views towards the jungle on one side and the ocean on the other.
    Photography is by Ben Hosking.

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  • McLaren Excell channels church interiors for The Splash Lab's LA showroom

    Arched doorways, altar-like tables and a nave-style display area feature in this Los Angeles showroom that McLaren Excell has designed for bathroom brand The Splash Lab. The Splash Lab’s showroom takes over a converted factory in LA’s Culver City area that was originally built back in the 1930s. As this is the bathroom brand’s US […] More