Ward 1 at Dykebar Hospital was the subject of an extensive refurbishment and alterations project that aimed to provide facilities for 24 patients moving from the neighbouring Hawkhead Hospital.

The design was focused on the requirements of the patient group, who are frail female elderly, some with dementia. Dependency ranged from patients requiring total essential nursing care to moderately independent.

From the outset our client’s primary objective was to avoid an institutional feel to a building that was originally built in the 1970s following conventional hospital design principles of the time. Therefore the completed interior design features aim to provide a domestic, homely setting and to respond to the patients’ sensitivity to their environment and need for memory ‘triggers’. Proposals were informed by research carried out at the Dementia Services Development Centre, Stirling University and by input from nursing staff who are now working in Ward 1.