Whiteleaf Centre, Aylesbury

The project was commissioned by Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust & Artcare. This £43m mental health unit by Nightingale Architects, was built on the site of the former Manor House Hospital, which itself was built upon a large private house & grounds of the same name. The ecology report on the Manor House site prepared by main contractors Kier & their consultants describes a number of soil piles and mounds of spoil on site. The report suggests that this spoil contains the original seed bank of native plant species inherent on the site with 'ruderal' species dominant in most areas. It also contains rubble and building materials consistent with the former buildings on the site. ‘A ruderal species is a plant species that is the first to colonize disturbed lands. The disturbance may be natural – for example, wildfires or avalanches – or a consequence of human activity such as construction or agriculture’. Over the last 150 years the site has developed from farmland & pasture - to a domestic & cultivated landscape with pleasure gardens and orchards - to a 20th Century Mental Health Hospital. The ‘collective seed bank’ associated with this variety of use is still there – in the ground. The value of gardens, plants, landscape and nature in the treatment of Mental Health is not disputed. It is a positive and reassuring aspect in all of our lives. Seasonal growth, change & renewal are constant and unerring companions to our year. The access and involvement of patients to the potential of plants, gardens the natural world to aid well-being, is at the core of my project. The new Hospital provides small gardens and a courtyard to cultivate and experience this at first hand. The work is digitally printed onto specialist vinyl wall covering and / or optically clear vinyls and has been applied to glazing and walls throughout the building to enhance way finding and identity. The works was manufactured and installed in collaboration with Guardian Glazing Ltd