PFI Partner – Grosvenor House Group
Client – South Essex Partnership University NHS Partnership Trust
Architect – Steffian Bradley
Capital Build - £28m

Brockfield House, a new medium and low secure forensic hospital, is representative of modern, caring and therapeutic mental health treatments. Working for South Essex NHS Trust and Grosvenor House Group, Impact Art developed the arts strategy from concept stage for this project.

Developers Grosvenor House Group has a strong commitment to using artwork in development design proposals. This belief allowed art to be an integral part of the healing process at Brockfield, not just another layer of decoration.

Working alongside Grosvenor, the Trust and architects Steffian Bradley, Impact Art’s strategy:

Represented the Trust’s vision to involve people, providing empathy and respect in a comfortable and optimistic working environment.
Considered all structural and services facilities.
Promoted ongoing positive images of mental health services and service users.
Enhanced landscape and interior design with innovative use of colour, surface and light for the improvement of patient, staff and visitor experience.
Personalised the experience of visiting and staying in hospital, making it a place of calm and care, not an institution.

Artist commissions

The artists in particular played a crucial role in humanising the interior and exterior spaces.

Arts company Superblue held consultation sessions with staff to develop design themes for each of the wards the final outcomes were then all based on the seven natural wonders of the world. Superblue created work for the main entrance including a two storey lightbox and corten steel and concrete seating that flows from entrance plaza into the main reception.  They also produced silkscreened glass bricks for each ward garden, as well as ward entrance lightboxes.

The seven natural wonders of the world concept was also used in wallpaper imagery throughout the hospital from Jacqueline Seifert (a designer who uses photography and illustration in her work).

Sasha Ward worked with the trust to develop a number of proposals for the faith room.  Sasha has used layers of colour, pattern and etch to create unique and beautiful windows.