Design process
When Andrew Moore was setting up his own private dental practice in Chelmsford, he purchased an awkward site, long and narrow, and occupied by a small single-storey doctor's surgery, by then closed and dilapidated. Looking for advice on what it might be possible to achieve given the site limitations in this residential suburb, he turned to Richard Mitzman, a former dentist now an architect specialising in distinctive dental surgeries. Moore, who had read of Mitzman's work in a trade magazine, met the architect and gave him a free hand to prepare designs for a surgery that fitted the site, met technical and hygiene requirements and made good economic sense.
Mitzman's first two attempts met with planning problems with the council insisting on a single storey building, in red brick and with a pitched roof. In response Mitzman pushed these requirements to their limits - a soaring single storey (matching the height of the neighbouring houses), a stepped pitched roof, the minimum use of brick, and the maximum use of glass. By placing the surgeries, x-ray and consulting room between two parallel corridors, one for staff and one for patients, Mitzman was able to make full use of the building's 142m2 footprint.
