Wolfson House is an 80-bed forensic unit and rehabilitation centre on six floors. The care it provides is therapy-based, with activities such as gardening in the nearby allotment, walking, music and art, as well as teaching patients more personal skills such as how to take care of themselves in every day life.
The floors and walls in the unit were specified by project architect Ingleton Wood. Interior Designer Makiko Sanabe-Buckley explains: "Wolfson House required flooring and wall cladding that was noninstitutional and non-clinical. Patients invariably spend many years in the unit, so it's essential that the environment helps them feel comfortable, relaxed and at home."
Ingleton Wood chose AltroSmooth Ethos and Altro Suprema safety flooring for communal areas. AltroSmooth Ethos is a smooth flooring with an attractive timber appearance that provides a seamless, hard-wearing, hygienic surface. Altro Suprema safety flooring incorporates Altro Easyclean Maxis Technology for superior cleanability and colour retention. With a wide range of colours including light and bright tones, it's perfect for areas where safety and aesthetics are important.
Each bedroom at Wolfson House has an en-suite bathroom and here Altro Marine flooring and Altro Whiterock Chameleon wall cladding have been installed. Altro Marine is a 2mm thick textured surface specially designed for safety with wet, bare feet or soft soled footwear. It incorporates coloured chips and grains to enable it to blend with various colour schemes.
Altro Whiterock Chameleon is a high gloss wall cladding available in a range of vibrant tones. A different colour was selected to match the design schemes of each of the six floors of Wolfson House. Both Altro Marine 20 and Altro Whiterock Chameleon include integral Altrosan bacteriostat, which does not support the growth of MRSA and similar organisms.
Heidi Sowerbutts, Head of Capital Development at East London NHS Foundation, comments: "Creating the right environment for patients at Wolfson House is key to their long-term recovery and the surfaces and colours we use are part of that."
"Patients can often pick at the walls, which means tiles and grouting are unsuitable," adds Heidi. "Altro Whiterock Chameleon is a pick-resistant, continuous waterproof surface that's easy to clean. The colours are lovely, too, and we have been able to create some really striking schemes."
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