Surface Design Show is the only event in the UK that focuses solely on interior and exterior surfaces, connecting innovative and exciting materials with a specifying audience of architects and designers.
Returning to London’s Business Design Centre between 9-11 February, the 2016 show will be the largest and most exciting show to date, occupying both the ground floor and all of the mezzanine level for the first time.
The design of healthcare facilities is without doubt one of the most crucial jobs in the architectural and interiors world. The choice of materials and lighting is paramount to the functionality of the building, with repercussions to the wellbeing of its staff and patients alike.
Obvious considerations must be immediately taken into account: qualities of hygiene and durability under high levels of footfall or continuous use. And increasingly the aesthetic design of wards, waiting rooms and practices is being recognised as effective in the care & rehabilitation of patients, visitors and staff.
Surface Design Show 2016 exhibitors Rockfon installed an extraordinary ceiling sculpture in the main atrium at Morriston Hospital in Swansea, as part of a £102m redevelopment of the hospital. The sculpture served as an impressive piece of artwork, inspired by the people and landscapes of Wales.
Artist Alan Gouldbourne used Rockfon’s Eclipse acoustic panels as his medium, building a staggered, dry-stone inspired wave up the walls and across the double height ceiling. The effect is two-fold: inspiring and practical. The enormous piece of art is not simply aesthetically pleasing but also dampens the many sounds that bounce around the large space, helping to achieve a calm waiting area for patients.
Other exhibitors at Surface Design Show 2016 whose products perform well in Health + Wellbeing environments are Bright Green, who‘s Bun Moss clads the walls of a yoga studio, Nora who manufacture a variety of highly practical laminate flooring used in many healthcare environments and Soundtect, maker of acoustic panels suitable for those areas of a surgery, hospital or even spa that need to be quiet, calm and welcoming.
As Health + Wellbeing is one of the focuses at Surface Design Show 2016, the organisers have adopted Maggie's as this year’s chosen Charity Partner. Maggie’s provides free practical, emotional and social support to people with cancer and their family and friends. Surface Design Show will be helping to raise funds for the new Maggie’s Centre in Leeds designed by Heatherwick Studio.
Maggie’s Centres are an exemplary example of this new approach to care facility design. The clinical model is left behind in the hospital and each centre offers a warm, welcoming home-from-home, dampening some of the negative mental & physical affects of stress from the many barriers to coping with a diagnosis and making steps towards recovery.
