BDP wins Leeds £600m Hospitals of the Future contest

AJ100 big-hitter BDP has won the Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust-backed contest for a £600 million pair of new sustainable hospitalsThe other finalists were London and Århus-based CF Møller Architects; HOK; NBBJ; and Penoyre & Prasad with Danish stars Schmidt Hammer Lassen, who are both now part of US giant Perkins & Will.Earmarked to complete in 2025, the 94,000m² project will deliver a new ‘state-of-the-art’ hospital for adult healthcare as well as a purpose-built new home for Leeds Children’s Hospital on the site of the existing Leeds General Infirmary next to Leeds University.Although images of its winning scheme have not yet been released, BDP describes its early design concepts as a ‘circular hospital structure shaped like the contours of the Yorkshire fells and dales, with a large island garden and play deck at its centre’.The development is the first of six major hospital projects to receive funding as part of the £2.7 billion initial wave of the government’s Health Infrastructure Plan. The programme aims to build 40 hospitals by 2030.It is estimated the design contract will be worth around £9.5 million to BDP which, earlier this month, announced it had snapped up specialist stadium architects Pattern for an undisclosed sum.The Leeds General Infirmary is a large teaching hospital, originally founded in 1711, featuring a mix of 19th-century buildings designed by George Gilbert Scott and various 20th-century buildings across a large city-centre campus.The new hospitals will be built on the north-east corner of the healthcare campus, on a site currently occupied by several soon-to-be-demolished buildings including a nurses’ home.The designs are expected to harness modern methods of construction and smart building technology, and to also support the trust in meeting its target to become carbon-neutral by 2050.The Leeds trust has also appointed WSP as its civil and structural designer to work on the project along with Arup as the client-side civil and structural technical adviser. WSP has also been appointed as the mechanical and electrical designer also providing specialist net zero/sustainability and digital design advice.Meanwhile Mott MacDonald has been appointed as the client-side mechanical and electrical technical adviser, with Arcadis picked as cost manager and MJ Medical brought in as medical equipment adviser.