PROJECT STORY
Putting healthcare back into the community: Pentre Awel.
Holistic healthcare hub on home turf.
Living well in Wales.
Beside a freshwater lake, find health services and rehabilitation housed together to enhance community care. With a combined leisure, education, business and research offer, Pentre Awel is the embodiment of Carmarthen County Council's new ‘wellbeing village’ model.
Commercial meets community
World-class wellbeing
The first development of its scope and size in Wales, Pentre Awel has been designed to provide world-class medical research and care delivery to help local people lead active, healthy lives.
Butting up against the beaches of Llanelli and Millennium Coastal Park, and bedding into an 83-acre natural landscape at Delta Lakes, it's a council-led, mixed-used venture incorporating walking and cycling paths plus landscaped recreation spaces for the public.
Developing in phases across four zones, the project looks to create over 1,800 jobs and training/apprenticeship opportunities. It is expected to boost the local economy by £467million over the next 15 years.
Butting up against the beaches of Llanelli and Millennium Coastal Park, and bedding into an 83-acre natural landscape at Delta Lakes, it's a council-led, mixed-used venture incorporating walking and cycling paths plus landscaped recreation spaces for the public.
Developing in phases across four zones, the project looks to create over 1,800 jobs and training/apprenticeship opportunities. It is expected to boost the local economy by £467million over the next 15 years.
State-of-the-art stuff
What living well means
The leisure centre has a 25-metre, eight-lane swimming pool, an eight-court sports hall, a gym, studios, and a hydrotherapy pool, while the clinical delivery and research centre will enable Hywel Dda University Health Board to expand its research into what it means to live well.
Aiming to take healthcare back into the community, a single building brings together education, business, research, leisure and health. The local NHS trust will operate from part of the building and have rehabilitation access to the gym and pool.
Aiming to take healthcare back into the community, a single building brings together education, business, research, leisure and health. The local NHS trust will operate from part of the building and have rehabilitation access to the gym and pool.
Local identity
Keeping the Welsh language alive
Recognising the importance of promoting Welsh language, the council commissioned a dedicated Welsh language impact assessment during early stages. This detailed how Pentre Awel could impact positively in social, economic and cultural terms on the Welsh language. There is now an action plan to support Welsh Government's strategy Cymraeg 2050: A Million Welsh Speakers, and create favourable conditions for language use.
Accommodating all
Seamless UX
Carmarthen County Council set a BREAAM Excellent target, and wanted each specialist wellness provision under one roof, in different wings spurring off from a central atrium, for a more seamless user experience.
However, the need to accommodate noisy sports halls and quiet rehabilitation rooms, plus differing regulations for pools, medical units and conference facilities, made design requirements complex.
The building's steelwork grid design also reduced space for the large service zones that often run inconspicuously in ceiling voids.
However, the need to accommodate noisy sports halls and quiet rehabilitation rooms, plus differing regulations for pools, medical units and conference facilities, made design requirements complex.
The building's steelwork grid design also reduced space for the large service zones that often run inconspicuously in ceiling voids.
Mature design
Our solutions
We put our MEP, Sustainability, Acoustics and Fire Engineering teams to task and painstakingly coordinated services to suit the shape of the building.
We split services down corridors then put smaller services in the ceiling voids.
Working up to Stage 4, with higher levels of coordination than usual, and a mature design early on, we developed a clear understanding of the different needs of each space and how it would be used, getting to grips with the different regulations for healthcare and hydrotherapy environments as well as Sport England Standards for the swimmingpool.
Images: Carmarthenshire County Council
We split services down corridors then put smaller services in the ceiling voids.
Working up to Stage 4, with higher levels of coordination than usual, and a mature design early on, we developed a clear understanding of the different needs of each space and how it would be used, getting to grips with the different regulations for healthcare and hydrotherapy environments as well as Sport England Standards for the swimmingpool.
Images: Carmarthenshire County Council
By connecting public, private, and third sectors, Canolfan Pentre Awel is set to strengthen community ties, reduce inequality, and position the region as a leader in health and life sciences.
Key Figures
83
acres
25
metre swimming pool
1,800
jobs to be created