Forget Me Not Centre

Lancaster, Lancashire

Client: St John’s Hospice
Value: £1.2 Million

St John’s Hospice has been providing palliative care for a wide range of life shortening conditions in North Lancashire, South Lakes and parts of North Yorkshire since 1986. The centre is a haven that offers whole family support: the most effective type of therapy that was previously not available free of charge in the area.

A new modern, purpose-built, facility with striking larch cladding has been created by FWP to deliver a place that would offer a safe, warm and hospitable environment for families and individuals to have support in a space away from home on the site of the end-of-life hospice building in Lancaster.

The Forget Me Not Centre boasts a calm, friendly and welcoming place through its palate of colours and materials used, the space is full of light and warmth allowing families to feel very relaxed and at ease. The bespoke organic shaped table at the heart of the building offers a space for group and family activities. New quiet rooms offering a tranquil environment to provide privacy are on both floors. Special gardens are also part of the centre, including a sensory garden providing reflective spaces where children can be immersed in the scents, textures and colours of plants and related elements.

Sustainable design has been at the forefront during the design and build of the Hospice. Throughout the process FWP has aimed to improve the visitor’s quality time spent at the centre, utilising the indoor space by determining their relationship with the building and its environment and allowing maximum efficiency while minimising negative impacts on the environment in an aesthetic manner.

By using various natural sustainable materials within the design and surrounding the building in hundreds of plants, FWP has created an environment capable of inspiring the visitor with courage and perseverance during their difficult health journey as well as allowing the family an opportunity for support.

The Forget Me Not Centre allows the hospice to provide a wide range of support for the community, FWP have managed to create a very special building described by the client as “a beacon of hope that will make a real difference to people’s lives”.