Ben Craven Architecture + Design Portfolio

Introduction

 

The Place of Health and Well Being is to provide an essential role to Preston City Centre and the wider Lancashire community. The Place is to cater for people who are going through an unusually traumatic experience, to provide them with alternative environment and setting to seek information, support and socialise with others who may find themselves in a similar predicament.

 

Following the model of the Maggie's Centres, The Place aspires to move beyond the mere prevision of accomodation to facilitate healthcare that is characteristic to most 'institutional' hospital environments and instead, provide conditions that can empower people to love with illness, enrich their lives, provide a sense of surprise, is inspiring and thought provoking.

 

"They provide intagible support, a sense of being in a welcoming place surrounded by people with whom you could share your experiences, or who are expert listeners. It's a kind of home-from-home and a world away from the more clinical atmosphere of a hospital."

                                                                                      - Architectural Review

 

The Concept

 

"On arriving to the location one is made to circumnavigate the 'site', catching only occasional glimpses of the 'object', seeing it in the broader context of the landscape, seeing it within a specific context of the landscape, before approaching, directly or indirectly, and then to reveal the 'inside' and finally, again, the 'outside' - a borrowed landscape - through the mediation of the object".