Physicians HQ goes before committee

Proposals for the £35m Northern headquarters of the Royal College of Physicians are set to go before Liverpool City Council’s planning committee next week, and are expected to be approved.

Known as The Spine, taking its name from a staircase on its north elevation that is meant to resemble human vertebrae, the 160,000 sq ft office will be built as part of Knowledge Quarter Liverpool.

The project is due to complete in 2020.

The bottom three and top four storeys of The Spine will become a new 70,000 sq ft centre of clinical excellence for the RCP, while the remaining seven floors will offer a flexible range of workspaces for the health, science and education sectors.

Designed by AHR Architects, with Morgan Sindall as lead contractor, The Spine will feature a timber curtain wall designed to reconnect people with nature and a ceramic frit façade, made up of 23 million voronoi polygons that “mimic human skin” and react to the local environment to control noise and glare.

It will also boast an internal sky garden, a fine dining restaurant available for private hire, bicycle and shower facility and under croft parking.

GVA and CBRE are joint agents on Paddington Village, the £1bn next phase of the Knowledge Quarter.