Sumner Street secures ‘Demonstrator Project’ funding from UKRI – a positive example of government-led collaboration

We waited for test results to allow us to go to work, we looked for information about new variants and we waited for a vaccine.

It’s an aesthetic which manifests Bryden Wood’s belief that a hospital occupies a special status of building in society, one with such a substantial level of importance and value that it deserves to be signified in the very appearance of the structure.The physicality of the Circle Reading building is both luminous and reflective, fundamentally optimistic feeling, but also discreet and secure.

Sumner Street secures ‘Demonstrator Project’ funding from UKRI – a positive example of government-led collaboration

‘We were able, with Circle Reading, to give the building an aesthetic which was beyond purely functional,’ says Wood..Beyond its striking glass exterior, lies the building’s central atrium - a sleek, communal space, three stories high and full of light, which houses a reception and cafe, accompanying tables, leather sofas and modern artwork.It’s an area Orthopaedic Surgeon, Raj Goel jokingly, but admiringly, refers to as ‘the foyer.’ ‘Patients say, “Wow, what a great place to work in,”’ he says..

Sumner Street secures ‘Demonstrator Project’ funding from UKRI – a positive example of government-led collaboration

The other Circle staff members seem to agree, united in their appreciation for this particularly special aspect of the hospital.Maswiken enthuses about the sense of cleanliness one is given, casting a view across the space.

Sumner Street secures ‘Demonstrator Project’ funding from UKRI – a positive example of government-led collaboration

Kirsty Cobden, a member of the Business Development Team who often holds events in the atrium, says she thinks the area’s aspirational, calm atmosphere has a direct effect on patients.

‘It doesn’t look like a hospital,’ she says, ‘so it puts them at ease as soon as they walk in… There’s a smell to hospitals.And I see examples of it all the time.”.

Marks talks about the convergence that’s happening between industries, companies, processes and products.The world is getting smaller than it ever was before, she says, and it’s creating greater opportunity.

She points out that 10-15 years ago she wouldn’t have been able to get in the room with the kinds of big companies she’s meeting with now.These days they’re coming to her for help and she’s passionately excited about the change happening right before her eyes.. “What we have to recognise,” she says, “is we're counting on each other, and we have to make sure that we're all doing the right things because it’s so connected.”.