At a time when spending on healthcare in the UK is at an all-time high and the government is monoscopically focused on the use of public private partnerships as its preferred procurement route for new, larger and ever more complex hospital buildings, it is paradoxical that the architectural quality of this built environment and its effect on patient welfare appears to be so low on the agenda.

Efficiency through greater centralisation of services seems to be the name of the game and, despite the dizzying sums involved, it is perhaps inevitable that some areas of patient care are afforded lower priority than others. Unfortunately these tend to be financially unattractive to private enterprise and the breach is increasingly being filled by charitable bodies and, intriguingly, it is this sector that seems most focused on the benefits that innovative architecture can provide in raising individual patient' spirits.

Three buildings constructed recently in Scotland not only show what can be achieved when the will exists, but also demonstrate the importance of material selection in creating a feel-good factor. With relatively small budgets, each makes exemplary use of wood to develop new architectural responses to patient needs and, punching above their size, suggest alternative, more people-based, approaches to healthcare design.

Robin House, designed by Gareth Hoskins Architects for the Children’s Hospice Association Scotland, sits on a steeply sloping plot near Balloch, a small, undistinguished town at the southern end of Loch Lomond. The site offers spectacular views but, located within one of Scotland's new national park areas, the project was designed to sit sensitively within the landscape. That said, the building's distinctive ‘ribbon’ roof not only defines the foyer and day spaces by maximising opportunities for natural light, but also provides a variety of profiles externally and internally that have visual appeal for children – a fundamental requirement of the brief.

After exploring several structural solutions, a steel frame and timber substructure were chosen, with economy achieved through repetition and standardisation of components. The four identically profiled ribbons have each been offset 3m in plan to create eyelet windows, the frames of which are manufactured from Siberian larch. The same material was used for the soffits and the rainscreen cladding, and untreated except for a flame retardant since it is intended that the walls and soffits will mellow to grey to match the roof materials.

Across the country at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee, Frank Gehry's use of timber in the Maggie's Cancer Care Centre focused on the building's roof construction. Working with local architects James Stephen and Partners and timber engineer and fabricator extraordinaire Gordon Cowley, one of the most inventive wooden structures ever seen in this country has been manufactured from LVL, OSB, spruce plywood and Douglas fir support columns and braces. Standing on a grassy promontory overlooking the Firth of Tay, the concertina’d, uneven, angular pleats of the building's roof structure not only provide a very visible presence for this small pavilion, they also set a precedent in Scotland for cutting edge, complex wooden structures that are able to define a building’s purpose. The roof ridge and valley beams are formed from LVL (some being bent in two places) and are exposed in intricate patterns that follow the curves and undulations of Gehry's design.

In this respect, the Maggie's Centres (of which there are currently four in Scotland) form an almost unique building type, being partly educational, partly therapeutic and partly spiritual in purpose. The most recent, Maggie's Highlands Cancer Care Centre at Raigmore Hospital in Inverness by Page and Park Architects, translates these requirements into built form and connects them into the landscape beyond. In doing so, the architects, with engineers SKM/Anthony Hunt, have exploded what is essentially conventional domestic timber frame construction into complex, non-orthogonal forms.

Inspired by the theme of cell subdivision, the building's design nevertheless fulfils the brief to provide non-residential support and information in a warm, homely, uplifting and stimulating environment to those in the Highland community who are associated with or affected by cancer. The building’s form responds to two mounds in the landscape designed by Charles Jencks and, in walls that angle outwards, inverts their vesica shape to create a trilogy of interconnected elements that represent divided living cells.

Initially the engineers conceived the building in concrete, but rapidly recognised that it would be more practical, and possibly cheaper, if the complexities – and waste – of wooden formwork were replaced by a low-tech timber frame and panel solution. Working in collaboration with Carpenter Oak & Woodland, the architects and engineers evolved a design comprising laminated plywood chords cut to curve at the top and bottom of each wall with infill spruce softwood and laminated structural studs.

In total, 3,500 individual timber elements combine to form the stressed skin frame of the building, with the majority of the inclined timber wall panels prefabricated using traditional (but very exact) techniques. A key challenge was how to connect so many pieces of timber since, with each one being a different length, orientation and angle of inclination, the use of standard brackets was not an option. In the end, the structural fixing between elements is a custom-designed spliced joint that relies on friction and a hardwood wedge. Internally, a large box beam with a total span of 10.5m was used to solve the problem of the 4m-long cantilever that projects into the centre of the building.

As with Robin House and the Maggie’s Centre in Dundee, the overall impression at Maggie’s Highlands is one of comfort and warmth and there is no doubt that wood has played a vital part in creating the relaxing, therapeutic atmosphere that is so essential to the success of each. As non-standard solutions, the designs for these buildings raise many questions about how we nowadays respond to fundamental healthcare needs, yet at the same time give strong indication that some of the best new architecture in Scotland is also some of the most original in the use of timber.

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