The Alder Centre
LIVERPOOL - COMPLETED
Winner Civic Trust Award 2022
BBUK worked with a team led by architects AHMM to win a competition for the Alder Hey Centre with its theme 'The Secret Garden', inspired by Frances Hodgson Burnett's book. The Alder Centre was originally established in 1989 and provides bereavement counselling for anyone who has lost a child. The centre provides a dedicated place for people who are affected to meet, talk, and access specialist counselling services, and also houses a national child bereavement helpline and counselling services for hospital staff.
The landscaping offers a series of intimate spaces that relate to individual counselling rooms, that have been specifically designed to maintain privacy for users. Two larger garden spaces are linked with the more public, communal parts of the building and a ha-ha at the end of the garden collects and attenuates surface water run-off from the whole site and provides security to the centre whilst maintaining views out across neighbouring Springfield Park.
Photos by Rob Parrish