LOUISE HAMILTON CENTRE WINS EDP DESIGN AWARD

LSI Architects Louise Hamilton Centre Project has won the EDP Design and Development Award 2014. The Louise Hamilton Centre is located in the grounds of the James Paget University Hospital in Gorleston, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. The centre is named after Gorleston-born Louise Hamilton who died from breast cancer in 1998 at the age of 28. It was conceived by Palliative Care East (PCE), a local charity set up to serve the local population of Gorleston, Great Yarmouth and the surrounding districts by providing care and information services for anyone, whether patients or their families, whose lives are affected by life-limiting conditions such as cancer or motor neurone disease.

“It is hard to comprehend that a building has such a profound effect on people that enter it. Patients experience peace and tranquillity; they are uplifted and calmed in an otherwise hostile situation. The building entices people to return and even causes them to smile. When a building does this for the vulnerable it is surely worthy of praise.”

– Roberta Lovick, Louise Hamilton’s mother

The award, sponsored by the Paul Robinson Partnership, was given to the Louise Hamilton Centre project “not just for the design but also for the way that staff and their families had rolled up their sleeves to help deliver the project”.

Now retired Partner David Thompson said on collecting the award alongside Project Architect and Associate Louise Knights “It’s what we do, what we train to do, what we desire to do. To have recognition for something that is a building we are proud to have produced and to have been associated with, that recognition that others see it in the same way is particularly important.”

The practice was also a close runner up in the Community Impact category, losing out to Bernard Matthews, and in the Sustainability and Environment Category which was won by Liftshare.