Ward 76 - Maternity Hospital Design

Interior design and public art for Ward 76, transitional care for St Michael's Maternity Hospital in Bristol
Spring - Autumn 2025
Commissioned by University Hospitals Bristol and Weston NHS Foundation Trust's Arts & Culture Programme
This project has been generously funded by Bristol & Weston Hospital Charity

I am thrilled to have been commissioned to design a new interiors and public art scheme for Ward 76, the transitional care unit for pre-term babies and their families at St Michael's Hospital. The design will encompass the ward corridor, 3 x four bay rooms, 3 x bedrooms, the reception area and the Parent & Baby Room. 

Following consultation with staff and patients on the ward, feedback from hospital design researchers and collage and poetry workshops with mothers and babies I have created three paintings which will be printed as wallpaper throughout the ward. 

The paintings HEATHER, BILLOWING and HORIZON (all 100cm x 50cm, acrylic on canvas) were painted from a feeling of space, nature, and scale. HEATHER evokes walks around Bristol's nature reserves; BILLOWING could be a merging of rolling hills and tree tops with clouds, and HORIZON is inspired by the view from St Michael's, bringing the outside in and remembering the temporary nature of the hospital stay. 

Alongside the wallpaper, a series of collages and poems by mothers who have had their babies at St Michael's will be framed and featured above the beds across the ward as a reminder of those who have come before and will come after us - that we are not alone. 

The ward design is currently in development for installation this Autumn. 

The In Between

Thresholds expanding
A merging of worlds
Yours into mine
As we slowly unfurl.

This liminal realm
Where night and day blend
This delicate line
A new navigation.

Encased in blue
The light grapples through
Outside leaves face the sun
Inside I face you. 

Ellie Shipman