Royal united hospital HYDROTHERAPY POOL
Project: Architectural Glazed Screens, Hydrotherapy Pool, RNHRD & Brownsword Therapies Centre
Client: Royal United Hospitals Bath NHS Foundation Trust
Arts Programme Manager: Hetty Dupays, Programme Manager, ‘Art at the Heart’
Specialist Glazing and bespoke surface finishes: Proto Studios
Architects: IBI Group.
Main Contractor and Developer: Kier
Award: The building has been recognised as the ‘Best Collaborative Arts Project (Static)’ at the prestigious Building Better Healthcare Awards 2020, which were delayed to 2021 due to the pandemic.
‘Flow’
I imagined a landscape as the best method of encapsulating all the contextual research which inspired my commission for the screens.
The historic RNHRD in the centre of Bath, known affectionately as The Min, and the comparatively new RUH site at Weston, were originally set in and adjacent to open fields and expansive views of the countryside. Not easy to imagine how beneficial this fact may have been to those patients and staff who experienced it at the time.
It is now of course commonly understood and promoted that exposure to natural spaces, planting and nature within medical and healing environments is of great benefit and assists in the recovery and positive experience of patients and staff alike.
This abstracted landscape is populated with recognisable motifs, such as flowers, deer and trees, woven together with abstracted forms and repeating patterns based directly upon the research I have carried out. Local landmarks such as Kelston Round Hill also feature, as do references to the architectural decoration, and built heritage and legacy of The Min and its archaic roman mosaics and theatrical lineage.
However, the most striking motif is inspired by water, and more explicitly, the gestural movement of water as shaped by those taking treatment in the Hydrotherapy Pools at both hospital sites. A shape made in water informed by the movement of a hand or leg. Abstractions of steam or mist appear to hover in this landscape. Reflections and sunlight on the pool surface mirror and distort the artwork. Areas of clear glazing allow the outside in, creating depth, variability and shifting patterns. Water is contained within a bowl or pool. An elegant but dynamic abstract splash covers the whole of the East Screen.
The connection to hot springs, and ‘taking the waters’ has of course shaped Bath into the World Heritage Site we see today.
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I have been so impressed with the positivity and care of the medical staff delivering these services, I wanted to evoke this caring nature with visual clues within the work, which may express this. Growing flowers and creating gardens is a nurturing vocation. Water is an elemental part of this. Historically, The Min was built upon the grounds of the first Theatre in Bath, and the later extension built upon the formal gardens of Rectory House. Adjacent to the small ChapeI found at the rear of The Min is a small but lovely garden. Also in Bath, Gibbes Garden was a 15th Century apothecary garden growing medicinal herbs.
I was offered a session at the Hydrotherapy Pool at The Min as a way of understanding a little more about the impact of water as a treatment. I am not a patient, nor can I experience this as many do daily. I am not in a process of healing or tempering lifelong acute conditions.
Patients vary from those with lifelong conditions, such as Ankylosing spondylitis and others suffering from chronic pain to physiotherapy in the pool following operations or broken limbs.
“Flow is active. It is not just the water, but it is the way our muscles are warmed and released, allowing blood to flow more freely. It is the freedom from stiffness of joints, when even a centimetre gained is a big triumph. It is active horizontally and not vertically. My spine is fully arthrosed and I cannot turn my head. This is a fundamental problem for AS patients and one of the big exercises in the pool and the gym is trying to turn and look over your shoulder without moving your body. That is flow. It is horizontal”. Professor George Odam RNHRD Lifelong Patient & our project champion.
I was commissioned by Art at the Heart of the RUH in December 2017 to create artwork in response to the architectural glazing in the Hydrotherapy Pool room at the new Therapies Centre for the Royal United Hospital, Bath. These floor to ceiling architectural glass panels cover a combined 46.40sqm of glass. I am working in collaboration with Proto Glass Studios, renowned architectural glass decorators. The project is being delivered by Kier Construction Ltd with Architects IBI Group. We engaged with a large group of stakeholders, including staff and service users, some of whom have been lifelong patients at the RNHRD & RUH.
I like the colour of evening sky, a particular shade of indigo blue.
Water is by turns fluid and abstract, solid, vaporous & ephemeral, contained within myriad oceans, seas, rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, pools, baths, and drinking glasses … and any number of vessels.
My approach was always to uncover stories connecting place & historic legacy, current hydrotherapy practice, wellbeing within a healthcare setting and an imaginary landscape, which may be conjured up by patients whilst being treated in the pool & feeling the benefits of floating & exercising, all the while being supported by warm water and the care, assistance, and encouragement of staff.