A project for Evelina Children's Hospital, part of the St. Thomas' Hospital campus. A lightweight canopy structure provides shading, lighting, and privacy for a workspace for medical staff within the main atrium space, looking over Archbishop's Park.
The structure is a hybrid of laser-cut spruce plywood and light grey machined steel components. The canopy is created from a series of seven folding scissor trusses, draped with weighted strips of raw canvas which diffuse the bright light from the sky during the day, and provide a surface for uplighting in lower light conditions. A folded screen of interlocking plywood strips creates a subtle spatial division between the workspace and the public Café area.
The structural design was developed with Structure Workshop, and incorporates longitudinal cable-braced beams running perpendicular to the timber scissor trusses within the same depth, to create a form of hybrid space frame, supported on pin joints to four free-standing steel columns. The components were fabricated off-site and installed over a weekend to minimise disruption to users.