In the second of three interviews conducted by The Network’s founding editor, Jonathan Baillie, spoke with Matthew Speight, company director and landscape architect at Iteriad, on the afternoon of Day Two of the DiMH 2025 conference in Manchester, about the factors that won the consultancy the Outside Space of the Year Award.
Iteriad won the Outside Space of the Year Award jointly with Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust & Gilling Dod Architects for the landscape architecture at the new North View Adult Mental Health Unit — the first phase of the redevelopment of the North Manchester General Hospital (NMGH) site. The new AMHU replaces the previous Park House facility, and is a key part of the broader site masterplan.
The winning entrants for this award explained that biophilic design 'is the overarching theme of the scheme, expressed through the architecture and the integration with the landscape'. They said: "The application of biophilic design is to mimic forms found in nature. The ward formation of the building is designed in a winged arrangement that wraps around outdoor space to form the private gardens each serving the adjacent internal ward areas. The scale of these spaces allows the service-user to feel safe close to the building, while enjoying connectivity with nature and the wider hospital estate."
The entry continued: "The building is set in a linear arrangement to work with the form of the site, providing a welcoming arrival space that connects with the main general hospital estate. There are a 22 private patient-courtyards/gardens/roof-garden spaces, together with a large public realm/arrival space and surrounding perimeter landscape zones, to provide privacy and boundary security to the private zones of the hospital.
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