Planners approve architect's design (From Hampshire Chronicle)

Planners approve architect's design

5:03pm Wednesday 10th September 2008

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A FIRM of Winchester architects is celebrating after planners approved what is thought to be the largest classical-styled building in Britain for 50 years.

Robert Adam Architects, based in Upper High Street, carried out all the external design work for Cliftonville, a mental health facility in Northampton.

Its proposed floorspace will be 200,000 sq ft - the size of two-and-a-half soccer pitches - and its façade will be around 575ft long, or one-ninth of a mile.

St Andrew's Healthcare, the charity that runs the site, expects to treat up to 132 patients in the new building. It will stand on the edge of central Northampton after planners there gave permission last week.

It is a further success for the Winchester-based firm, which employs around 90 people. Earlier this summer, the Millennium Gate in Atlanta, USA, which it also helped to design, was officially opened to great fanfare.

In both cases, the designs included several classical features, which is a speciality of Robert Adam Architects.

Robert Adam himself was the lead architect on the external design of the Northampton scheme, while another firm, Oxford Architects, tackled the interior.

The finished article will form part of a campus of 30 existing buildings, including the original hospital, which dates to 1835.

Married father-of-two, Mr Adam, 60, who lives in Crawley near Winchester, said: "I've been working on this site for a few years, and we've designed a couple of smaller buildings there already.

"The original buildings are classical in design, but the post-war ones are what I would call watered down contemporary'.

"What is significant about this new building is that it's probably the largest one to be designed in a classical manner in Britain since the War Office in the 1950s."

He added that the scheme would take at least two years to complete, and would cost several million pounds. However, he said the classical design had not made it any more expensive for the St Andrew's charity.

Its chief executive and medical director, Philip Sugarman, said: "Everyone at St Andrew's is thrilled by Robert Adam's vision for the building.

"One of our key beliefs is that the physical environment is very important for mental well-being."

Apart from Cliftonville, Robert Adam Architects is currently working on several mansions in London, including one in Hampstead that is a quarter of the size of the Northampton scheme.

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