| Breathing Space |
Breathing Space is the largest primary care facility for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) in the UK and provides support of both patient and carer needs with day care and 20 beds to enable 7 day care to be delivered where there is a need. The £12M building was funded from the Coalfields Regeneration Trust and in partnership with Rotherham PCT, with the support of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council and Rotherham Hospital Foundation Trust. The building its self is also unique in its design concept which brought many challenges to the design team which included Cambridge University. One challenge for the design team was to balance ‘fire safety’ with usability and maintaining an ‘open feel’ to the building, this was created by a central atrium which rises up through two floors. To overcome some of the ‘fire safety’ challenges which such inventive buildings present, a residential fire sprinkler installation designed to BS9251:2005 was installed in all areas of the building with the exception of the atrium. The fire sprinkler system utilized a dedicated water supply which was fed from the towns main which proved to be more than capable of providing the flow and pressure for the system. |
