Clonakilty Community Hospital, Co. Cork

The Design Team was appointed in 2022 to extend the existing facilities at Clonakilty Community Hospital. The brief was driven by HIQA’s requirements to 1) reduce the number of beds in the existing 8-bed wards, 2) provide additional Day Rooms for the existing wards and 3) provide 20 en-suite Single bedrooms together with ancillary facilities.

In response to the Brief, the Architects created two single-storey extensions, the first a small extension to provide 5 additional Day Rooms for the existing building and the second, a much larger extension accommodating the 20 En-suite Single Bedrooms, 3 Day Rooms, together with ancillary facilities including Nurses’ Station, Office and Disabled ablution facilities.

The smaller extension takes the form of a pavilion is located in an existing large courtyard and is linked to the existing Day Rooms. This black fibre cement-clad pavilion opens on 3 sides to provide external living space, whilst bringing life into the previously over-scaled and unfriendly courtyard.

The second, larger extension is designed to form 3 sides of a new courtyard and to complement the scale and materiality of the existing buildings located on the fourth side. The Courtyard provides external living space, daylight and views for the extension.

The design of the facilities places an emphasis on “homely” through the maximisation of daylight in the corridors, features such as built-in window seats in the bedrooms, the choice of colours and furnishings, together with visual and physical connectivity with the outside.