Fortius Clinic, King Williams Street.

Healing in the centre of the city.

We recently collaborated with the Fortius Clinic on the development of its new clinic in central London. Located on King William Street, this welcoming space offers consultation, outpatient, and diagnostic services.

A bright basement.

The redevelopment of the existing building comprises nine consulting rooms, along with an x-ray suite, a 3T MRI scanner and treatment rooms. As the clinic is located in the basement with very limited natural light, we had to work closely with TP Bennett to ensure our designs allowed for a bright, spacious, and calming environment. Our work involved modifying the existing site infrastructure to better support the needs of the clinic.

Scanner safety.

A key challenge on the project was working with the complexities of the MRI scanner. We had to consider the routing of the quench pipe, which is a necessary piece of equipment used to vent the highly dangerous liquefied cryogen that sits within all MRI scanners. The importance of getting this routing right cannot be underestimated; if a catastrophic failure occurs to the scanner, the liquid can boil rapidly and potentially cause an explosion. We also had to think about how to effectively shield existing services from the Gauss field (magnetic flux) produced by the MRI unit.

To ensure the safe arrival and installation of the MRI scanner at the clinic, we worked closely with the City of London authorities and used a crane to lift the equipment over existing buildings and lower it inside. For such a restricted site, the spacious and bright feel that patients experience is a testament to truly effective design.