Sandyford East

10 Jan 2007

Architect: studioKAP, chartered architects Location: Parkhead, Glasgow Client: Greater Glasgow Primary Care Trust Photographs: Keith Hunter

The Sandyford Initiative promotes sexual health and family planning in Glasgow. Sandyford East is the first of a group of new clinics, and it has been built as an extension to Parkhead Health Centre. The brief focussed on the role of disarming the inhibitions of potential clients by offering convenient, effective medical and counselling services within an environment that was both welcoming and discrete. Both the plan sequence and a variety of spatial, lighting, material and colour tools were employed in response to this brief. The Sandyford building infills the corner of a double-cross existing plan, consolidating the urban corner of two streets and creating a small courtyard between new and old. It can be entered through the existing centre and independently, via the courtyard. Externally a predominantly timber and galvanised steel façade gently screens a more private world behind a foil of trees. A brick plinth implies both a link to and a conclusion of the existing centre. Internally an open reception-waiting area acts as fulcrum, balancing a ramped link to the centre with the courtyard entrance and the corridor to consulting rooms.