Client: The Shooting Star Trust
Location: Middlesex, UK
Size: 1,500m²
Skills: Architecture, Landscape Architecture, Interior Design
Shooting Star House is a specialist children's hospice providing palliative, respite and terminal care for children with life-limiting conditions living in West London and North Surrey. The Trust's objective is to provide an environment that encourages the physical and spiritual well-being of the children in a reassuring home-from-home atmosphere. Facilities allow up to ten children and their families to have a break for up to two weeks at a time.
The building responds to its compact one-acre site: the placement of its curvilinear form allows communal and private functions to be conveniently separated, minimizing vehicular access and creating an intimate and secluded setting behind a sheltered enclosure. Open plan activity and play areas clustered around a double height dining space just beyond the main entrance, while the quieter residential wing wraps around a circular paved courtyard, set out on a southwest facing axis. Specialist therapy rooms are located in four radial pods, which progressively increase in height as they step back from the street frontage. Family living areas and administrative functions are located on the upper level set back from the ground floor footprint to achieve a domestic scale massing.
The curved geometry offers the opportunity to create a diverse range of interior spaces which, combined with a richly landscaped garden, provide an integrated holistic environment that enhances the quality of life for the children and their families.