Marie Curie, the cancer charity dedicated to caring for patients with terminal illness, take pride in providing vibrant, homely, hospice care for patients and their families. Key to Marie Curie’s principle of providing the best possible quality of life is their first class facilities that patients can feel at home in.
Marie Curie, the cancer charity dedicated to caring for patients with terminal illness, take pride in providing vibrant, homely, hospice care for patients and their families. Key to Marie Curie’s principle of providing the best possible quality of life is their first class facilities that patients can feel at home in.
When designing their latest hospice in Birmingham, key to Marie Curie vision was to give the facility a heart from where all things would resonate. From this central hub, three corridors would lead guests to hospice accommodation, living and leisure facilities.
However, the building’s design configuration to meet fire regulations, planners had to provide a means to protect against fire and smoke channelling along the corridors to other areas of the hospice. Whilst non load-bearing fire walls and fire doors would enable the building to meet fire regulations, the physical partitioning of this would impede on the principle of an open plan central hub thus causing the hospice to begin to resemble a hospital.
Coopers solution was to install three FireMaster fire curtains at the entrance of each corridor, these fire curtains would deploy from the ceiling and effectively compartmentalise the central hub in the event of a fire to protect the corridors from fire and smoke migration. This option would guarantee that the building’s open plan design is constructed as designed whilst the FireMaster fire curtains would provide 2 hours protection against fire, protecting the occupant from the harmful effects of fire.
Coopers fire curtains are developed to be sympathetic to architectural design and can be installed in a building’s ceiling, remaining hidden from view until triggered by a fire alarm. In this instance, smoke seals were also installed into the fire curtain’s side guides to guard against smoke and hot gases leaking through side channels and spreading to other parts of the building.
From concept to full commissioning, Coopers worked with main contractor Wilmot Dixon and Marie Curie to guarantee that the hospice met with local building control approval.
Coopers FireMaster fire curtain’s also enabled the hospice’s open plan environment design to be achieved, helping Marie Curie to achieve their principle values by distancing the building away from feeling like a hospital environment towards a homely, more vibrant living space.
Furthermore, the installation and commissioning were completed in line with The Prince of Wales official opening of the £20m hospice.
