MCO Projects was commissioned by the Sisters of Mercy to provide an integrated design team service for a new community residential building on a site at the Mater Hospital. MCO Architecture provided full architectural services from concept to completion, including fit-out. The new building was completed for the community to move in by December 2005 and houses 30 Sisters who formerly lived in the northwest wing of the original hospital building. The community has built the new convent to facilitate the Mater and Children’s Hospital Development, freeing up the northwest wing for use in the main hospital.

The convent is a private home for the Sisters of Mercy community that has been active in the life of the hospital for the past 150 years – their role having changed over the years from medical/management to pastoral care/support. The brief was to provide simple, comfortable accommodation with an emphasis on provision for ambulant disabled, reflecting the age profile of the community. The brief was for 30 ensuite rooms with associated community rooms and ancillary spaces such as parlours, kitchens and Prayer Room.

While the building is not part of the Hospital, it is designed to allow for easy adaptation to a more care-oriented use in the future.

Our ambition for the project was to realize a building with greatly increased energy performance and a high quality internal environment within a limited budget by installing high levels of insulation, airtightness, and the introduction of an innovative but simple passive ventilation system. The Sisters of Mercy were very supportive of these aims and considered them consistent with the ethos of the Order.

The Sisters moved into the new convent in mid November 2005 and it is evident that the building holds heat very well and provides a high quality internal environment, particularly in terms of natural light and air quality.


Form and design:
The building form and design is dictated by planning issues and sustainable design principles. The site is within the curtilage of a protected structure - the1850s main hospital building and its stone boundary wall. The site was formerly a garden with large mature trees to the northwest corner with Berkeley Road. The site borders the entry court for the mortuary, which leads through to the central courtyard of the main hospital building.

In response to the particular context the new building is a subsidiary structure that does not compete with the protected structure. The building is low lying, consisting of 2 storeys with a flat sedum roof. The building sits into the gentle rise across the site to reduce the physical impact of the building onto the street and gardens.

The building is designed to maximise passive solar gain and provide a private and secure living environment. The building is organized around 3 external spaces: the entry forecourt, the garden court and the woodland area. The entry forecourt, the entrance elevation to the site, engages with the gable of the Hospital Chapel and the future façade of the new mortuary to create an enclosed urban space off the North Circular Road. The garden court is a sunken garden enclosed by the building and the protected structure to create an open green space in the centre of the plan. Most internal spaces overlook the garden court. The building form maximizes the distance between the northwest façade of the original building and the new bedroom wing. The woodland area is a heavily planted naturalised garden with preserved mature trees, providing a contemplative view from the Prayer Room and maintaining the original urban condition at the northwest corner with Berkeley Road.

The stone wall along the North Circular Road originally enclosed trees, bushes and climbers. The new Convent is stepped back from this wall for most of its frontage onto the North Circular Road to allow space for reinstating this planting. In time much of the white brick wall to the street will be covered by climbers. The landscaping around the building generally uses native species with raised beds in the garden court allowing easy maintenance by residents. The stained glass window to the Prayer Room, by Paedar Lambe, communicates the nature of the building use to the city.

Continue to Page 2