Bicester Community Hospital

This new hospital was commissioned by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust & was delivered by Kajima with construction partner Mansell & IBI Nightingale Architects. The artwork was commissioned by Artscape for Oxford Health. The brief was built around the need for privacy in the rooms. Large glazed screens open up onto a landscaped courtyard. Although these spaces are being planted with trees and some small shrubs, most of the space would be turfed. Patients, staff & visitors can still see out from the windows in the knowledge that their privacy was being maintained. Opaque and transparent layers with drawn & cut out detailing were created to provide some variation & changeability in the surface. It was agreed that the principle we should follow is to develop a highly visual & primarily figurative narrative, which also provides a privacy screen between the users of the ward-rooms and the external courtyards. The courtyard landscapes are brand new, with ground level put to grass and no planting at height to provide cover or privacy screening. This has however provided the opportunity to create a new and imaginary landscape, which bridges the gap between figurative and recognisable details and structures from the external landscape, alongside abstract and original forms and patterns found within the artwork. The works are to be digitally printed onto optically clear vinyl in layers of opaque and transparent white, with some added colour. The attention to detail will be focussed on a horizontal band across the mid section of the glazing screen to provide privacy. The top section will be left clear, so that uninterrupted views of the sky can be had. Guardian Window Films have manufactured and installed the work.