Primary Care Centre

Moygaddy comprises a Primary Care Centre, Nursing Home parkland and associated car park and ancillary services, which is part of an extensive new masterplan for a Healthcare, Residential, Community and Commercial district north of Maynooth. The Healthcare sector is the first component to be developed and is located at the south entrance to the wider site acting as a gateway for the future development of a larger healthcare campus. Our design has therefore been carefully considered as a flagship for the whole Moygaddy Healthcare campus, combining architecture, engineering, and landscape architecture to create a set of buildings that not only cater to the needs of a nursing home and primary healthcare facility but also set the standard for future development within the wider campus.

The site is currently a greenfield site, divided and bordered by native hedgerows and mature trees, which have been taken as a starting point in defining our site and will be retained and complemented, to promote biodiversity and retain the natural feel of the site. The site is around 20 minutes from Maynooth on foot. Pedestrian and vehicular access routes were analysed, and paths proposed on anticipated desire lines. The proposed development provides for 24262sqm of public open space which will form part of the Rye River Walk.

The Primary Care Centre (PCC) is a highly public building and has been designed with three storeys to give it greater prominence and mark the new entrance of the site. The Nursing Home is two storeys and is positioned further into the site, where it would be more tranquil for residents and so that the views to the south and southerly aspect can be maximised. The car park is positioned between both buildings for the convenience of users and efficiency of the layout.

In designing both buildings, we analysed recent, completed exemplar projects of a similar scale to arrive at the best layouts possible for the building. In the Primary Care Centre, there is a pharmacy, café, and reception at ground level to give the most active frontage possible.

The Nursing Home has been designed as a Trident form to maximise operational efficiency and to take maximum advantage of the solar gain and views to the southern aspect. The three ‘prongs’ of the building house the residents’ bedrooms. This allows for good security and supervision of the corridor from the nurses’ stations at the top of the trident and means most of the residents’ rooms are arranged around two generous south facing landscaped courtyards, which the residents have access to. The south ends of the courtyards are closed off with parkland railings but retain a visual connection to the public open space beyond.

Both buildings are finished in white render which gives a clean and robust appearance. Profiled metal cladding highlights the entrances to both buildings.