Congress Mparntwe Health Hub | Susan Dugdale & Associates

Award for Sustainable Architecture (NT)

Congress Mparntwe Health Hub’s design achieved a 6-star Greenstar rating, making it the first of its kind in the Northern Territory. The project allowed the construction industry to upskill, providing a new benchmark for location-specific sustainable practices in remote areas, particularly in this very special place in the centre of Australia. This was clearly only made possible through the union and endeavour of the client, architect, and builder, resulting in a transformative cultural and environmental process.

While the typical measures of sustainable achievement are clearly executed, from electrification to lower water consumption, to elevated indoor air quality, excellent operable mechanical systems, as well as passive thermal principles, it is the ‘above and beyond’ social measures that make this a remarkably sustainable outcome.

One example is the contractor selling demolished items for concrete recycling, creating a new business opportunity for road base material. These initiatives significantly extend the project’s life-cycle benefits. The project’s locale drives outcomes, providing new levels of social opportunity in a sector that often struggles to balance commercialisation with innovation.

The Tracy Memorial Award

Congress Mparntwe Health Hub is a deeply significant project that sets a new standard for sustainable, culturally responsive design in Central Australia. It reflects a shared commitment from the client, architect, and builder that places ‘care’ for both people and place at its heart. 

The two wings are held together by a void that offers a texturally rich palette, binding the inside to the outside and concealing services discreetly in its core. The interiors are also especially well resolved, with natural light, tactile finishes and a carefully considered ambient materiality creating spaces that feel calm and welcoming, inviting connection. Given the state of flux in a rapidly expanding organisation, clever spatial planning has accommodated this growth across the project timeline with refined agility. 

The expression of its sustainability features in the external facade, with plantings, water tanks, folded planes for sunshades, and culturally sensitive artworks, skilfully integrating this large project into place by employing a more delicate, human scale. Beyond its outstanding environmental performance, the project delivers lasting social value through genuine community benefit and strong Aboriginal participation. The jury was particularly impressed with the team’s capacity to support emerging local businesses through the project’s procurement strategies.

The Indigenous Community Architecture Award

Congress Mparntwe Health Hub has enabled many layers of Aboriginal participation, engagement, and innovation within one project. The user group for this building is the Arrernte population of Central Australia, and the integration of economic, social and environmental initiatives sets a new benchmark for architectural endeavour as a multi-layered way to benefit community.

From employment enterprises to reporting requirements and Aboriginal workforce participation, this project demonstrates a nexus between client values and much-needed design thinking. The collaborative processes used to protect culturally valued relationships with Country, the pragmatic frameworks of inclusion, and self-determined emerging industries in this project highlight the latent opportunities embedded in architects’ client briefs.

Whilst the long-term impacts of this project are yet to be determined, its effect on Australian architectural practice is clearly evidenced through the compilation of the various ways architects can choose to practice. The jury wholeheartedly endorses the warmth engendered by this project, which takes Aboriginal staff and clients from sub-standard facilities into an aspirational series of spaces in one of Australia’s places of significance.

The Peter Dermoudy Award for Commercial Architecture

Congress Mparntwe Health Hub responds with utmost attention to its client’s broad values, caring for the environment alongside the people it serves. As an Aboriginal-controlled organisation, bringing together a growing staffing cohort to provide health services to 80% of Central Australia, this provided the architects with a rich and dynamic task. The result is a building that holds the Arrernte people’s wellbeing and their cultural values at the core of a complex socio-spatial composition.  

The building expresses its location delicately; from mitigating flood risk through elevated datums and topographically directed landscapes, to the harvesting of precious water in an arid environment, to the presence of demolished materials in the new works, and, most importantly, the preservation and upholding of the sacredness of an ancient tree – this project transports one beyond its envelope.

The built form addresses the quantum of space needed to accommodate the numerous and changing functions of this organisation with admirable deftness. The two wings and their separation, both vertically and horizontally, provide clarity in form while accommodating the commercial realities of Congress’ operations. The weaving of program, story, and materiality makes this an outstanding project.

COLORBOND® Award for Steel Architecture

Congress Mparntwe Health Hub demonstrates the project’s embeddedness in place through the multiplicity of Colorbond steel. Firstly, its site responsiveness is expressed through a folded façade which acts to moderate light and reduce heat load whilst maintaining aspect. Secondly, its sustainable features are prominently displayed on other façades, showcasing water collection and delicate plant cabling. Lastly, appropriate and expressive cultural integration through an abstract working of selected themes into vertical louvres, carefully wrapping the main street frontage, signifying the importance of this place.