morag myerscough's bold + bright bespoke bedrooms light up sheffield children’s hospital

british designer morag myerscough has created a series of bold and bright bespoke bedrooms for sheffield children’s hospital, transforming patient spaces into artistic tableaus. four schemes are rotated throughout 46 en-suite bedrooms and six multi occupancy bays, including a paler color palette designed for children who have conditions such as autism. ‘although the rooms are for children, I didn’t want them to be childish because children of all different age groups will be staying in them’ myerscough explains. ‘I also wanted to create somewhere parents would be happy to spend time too. it was just about making a bedroom that you felt good to be in.’

all images by jill tate

commissioned by artfelt, the children’s hospital charity’s arts program, the project brings a punchy palette of pink, yellow, green, and blue hues to the rooms. the new spaces, created by avanti architects, have a soft and domestic sensibility, and have been crafted to help make the clinical more comfortable by hiding plugs and wires behind formica panels.

because she was working in a clinical area, everything myerscough produced had to be totally sterile and easy to clean. ‘the brief I was given was that whatever I wanted to do I would have to do on formica,’ she describes. ‘the wood grain on formica is actually screen printed on to paper and then laminated. so to get the really pure colors that I wanted, I had hoped to screen print my own pattern onto the existing wood grain. unfortunately we couldn’t do that because you can only screen print one or two colors on to the paper before it disintegrates. in the end, we scanned the wood grain and then digitally printed the patterns, making sure it all matched up. then we printed it onto paper and laminated it like normal formica.’

myerscough worked alongside patients and nurses to understand which colors and patterns they preferred, while also exploring which clinical factors needed to be considered. ‘as an artist you can’t lose that vision of how things could be, but at the same time you need to take people’s concerns on board. it’s a collaboration rather than a compromise.’

‘from the work I’ve done in healthcare I know that it’s phenomenally positive for people to have art in hospitals,’ the artist continues. ‘going into a grim and grey room isn’t going to make anybody feel good. but to go into a room that lets you know that people care about you and they’re thinking about you — it’s a no-brainer really. it makes people happier and more assured that everybody is concerned about them and wants them to get better.’

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