Healing Pool Part 1 Project 2005 Jonathan Pugh Mackintosh School of Architecture | UK The ‘Healing Pool’ is influenced by my interest in the material and social layers which make up the built environment, coupled with an openness to people who have a relationship to either the brief or site. I am keen to address the corruptive restrictions I see as inherent in the role of an architect. The project responds to the character of the hospital site and attempts to apply a narrative to the building’s components, systems and users whilst providing a intimately ‘holistic’ atmosphere for the purpose of healing. The proposal is driven by the parallel and interconnected imperatives of the sustainability and healing. Its starting point is the existing circumstances of the site, which teamed with an attitude towards the users’ (patients, therapists, carers visitors) experiences leads to a particular outcome both in building form and documentation of the proposal.Choice of materials, form of construction and demolition, layout and timetable are determined by a researched understanding of the needs of the users, rather than merely relying on any given orthodoxy. The resultant architecture celebrates the possibilities of the shell and the language of the envelope.