The Waldron
Henley Halebrown Rorrison's phased masterplan development of The Waldron health centre in Lewisham South London was designed to change people’s perception of healthcare. The Waldron is planned around a new civic square framed by the health centre, shops, and a 5-storey development with street level café. Inside, the 6,029 sq m health centre is organised around two courtyard gardens and a spacious foyer featuring a site-specific installation by artist Martin Richman.
Located in the London Borough of Lewisham just north of London’s South Circular inner ring road, in an area in which housing estates and tower blocks populate a discontinuous landscape, the new centre replaces an anonymous single storey health centre with a significant urban development that has a greater capacity to shape the fabric of the locality and form a backdrop for public activity.
The design demonstrates the practice’s interest in creating a public building with the presence of a civic landmark that has the capacity to shape the daily lives of those living nearby, whilst at the same time retaining a level of intimacy necessary for clinical consultation. The plan is generated from the patient’s perspective. The design seeks to describe a narrative journey in five frames beginning with the square leading inside first to a foyer, then cloister, waiting room and finally to a clinical room.
The Waldron makes a significant contribution to this area of London, providing the local community with a state of the art new healthcare centre and contributing a new permeable urban block and public space to the cityscape.
