Thursday, January 20, 2011

Jo Yeates: Memorial at final masterpiece...


Murdered architect Jo Yeates is set to be honoured with a permanent memorial on the site of her final masterpiece – this stunning £430million super hospital.
Jo Yeates murder: architect to get memorial at final masterpiece
Landscape designer Jo, 25, was working on designs for gardens at the brand new Southmead Hospital in Bristol when she vanished a week before Christmas.
These creative drawings were part of the last project she worked on before she was snatched, strangled and her body dumped in snow near her home in Clifton, Bristol.
Today the NHS trust behind the massive private finance project revealed they intend to honour Jo’s work with a memorial at the hospital to mark her legacy.
Ruth Brunt, chief executive of North Bristol NHS Trust, said: ”North Bristol NHS Trust would like to extend its sincere and heartfelt condolences to Joanna’s friends and family at this incredibly sad time.
”She was a very valued member of the team working on the design of the internal hospital gardens that will be such an important part of the new Southmead Hospital development when it opens to patients in 2014.
Jo Yeates murder: architect to get memorial at final masterpiece
”We would be very happy to work with BDP, Joanna’s employer, to consider something that would commemorate her life and the work she did for the new hospital.”
Building Design Partnership (BDP), where Jo and Boyfriend Greg both worked, are the official architects behind the project, which has a completion date of 2014.
The state-of-the-art hospital is set to transform healthcare for people in the Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire – serving 500,000 people.
The building design features 800 beds, 32 state-of-the art operating theatres and diagnostic rooms and an emergency department with direct access from a helipad.
Jo Yeates murder: architect to get memorial at final masterpiece
But a key part of the design are the internal ‘green spaces’ where patients can relax – which Jo played a key role in designing.
Bosses at BDP, based on Hill Street in Bristol, have backed the idea of a permanent memorial at the new site.
Keith Pavey, director of BDP’s Bristol studio where Jo worked, said: ”It would be a very nice gesture for that to happen and we would be delighted to endorse it.”
BDP is also to decide in the coming days how they are going to mark Jo’s death.
Jo had worked at the architects firm since September 2008 and it was there that she met boyfriend Greg Reardon, 27, an architect working towards his professional chartership.


http://swns.com/jo-yeates-murder-architect-to-get-memorial-at-final-masterpiece-191504.html