A chubby bronze bird perches on the roof of a bright orange building at the Alder Hey children’s hospital, craning its neck to keep tabs on all who enter. On a bench nearby, a smaller bird looks up, its wings tentatively spread, as though plucking up the courage to join its mother on the roof. Two more cartoonish creatures are engaged in conversation above the entrance canopy, perhaps mimicking some of the family discussions happening down below.
It is a disarmingly cheerful entry to a place where most visitors arrive in acute distress, as the new home for young people’s mental health services in the region. The £20m project brings services together that were formerly scattered around Liverpool in a disjointed muddle of converted buildings, giving them a new base on the main hospital site, as part of Alder Hey’s expansive parkland campus. Designed by Cullinan Studio, with artworks by Lucy Casson, the new centre points to a welcome alternative to the usual dreary hospital template of anonymous sheds housing wipe-clean, windowless corridors. It floats on the edge of the park like a rusty steel ship moored in a dry dock, enclosing a pair of light-flooded courtyards, with warm wooden interiors and thoughtful details throughout.
