Catherine’s House | Architectus Conrad Gargett
The Architectus Conrad Gargett health and heritage teams have reimagined the historic 1920s convent at Mater Hill in South Brisbane into Queensland’s largest and most comprehensive integrated perinatal mental healthcare facility. Catherine’s House for Mothers, Babies and Families, located in the heart of Mater’s South Brisbane l campus, was created in response to the pressing need for perinatal mental healthcare support in the region.
Catherine’s House includes ten suites designed to be homely spaces offering separate lounge areas with adjoining baby room while also meeting high level clinical requirements. The design fosters interaction among mothers with shared lounge and dining areas, as well as a large secure outdoor courtyard.
The project successfully retained, reused and celebrated the cultural heritage significance of the former convent and importantly, enabled change to integrate contemporary building services, meet current certification requirements and provide a meaningful home for postnatal mental healthcare in South East Queensland.
Eromanga Natural History Museum | Architectus
The Eromanga Natural History Museum is designed to showcase the museums collections and activities to the public, provide exceptional research facilities, and prepare for a future exhibition space.
The project includes an entry building with public spaces, a courtyard and workplace. A research building houses labs and spaces for fossil preparation and storage.
On Boonthamurra Country in remote Queensland, the museums simple yet elegant concrete form sits comfortably within the landscape. From a low ridgeline, it opens to views of bloodwood trees and gilgai wetlands, while its canopy provides shade and textured walls respond to light conditions.
Understanding the remote context and the clients notforprofit status, the team designed the museum to withstand extreme temperatures and selected robust systems and materials to minimise costs.
Close collaboration and thoughtful design have resulted in a museum that is memorable and engaging for visitors and supportive and inspiring for staff and volunteers.
Great Barrier Reef Arena | Cox Architecture
Designed by Cox Architecture and built by the community, for the community, Mackay’s Great Barrier Reef Arena is a hub for Culture, Sports, and Community celebrations. The Arena offers world-class facilities for a diverse range of events, including concerts, elite sports, and cultural festivals.
The design emulates the colours, cultures, and landscape typical of the region. Indigenous culture and traditions, the early Maltese immigrants and the people that have built this region are celebrated in the design. The new grandstand is deeply rooted into the landscape and is conceived as growing out of the landscape. Its roof, founded in the new plaza, slowly rises as it hugs the oval to cover the players and media facility. It floats over a rusticated ribbed wall that grows out of the landscape, establishing a unique simplicity of two elements, one hovering over the other.
Ipswich Hospital Mental Health Acute Inpatient Services | Hassell
Ipswich Hospital’s Acute Mental Health Unit builds on a foundation of healing to create an environment that nurtures wellbeing and mindfulness. The interiors are integral to the holistic design concept, establishing a setting of calm, restoring dignity to the healing journey and normalising mental health care in the community.
Through the codesign process, Hassell collaborated with consumers, carers, clinicians, allied health professionals, operations staff and community groups to shape the healing environment. Meaningful engagement with First Nations representatives has delivered a culturally safe environment with integrated landscapes, bush medicine, sunlit interiors, colours that reflect Country and artworks by local artists.
Redlands Satellite Hospital | Fulton Trotter Architects with Architectus Conrad Gargett
Fulton Trotter Architects provided design and documentation services for the Queensland Satellite Hospital Program which saw the delivery of Redlands Satellite Hospital, a major healthcare facility within the south-east Queensland for Queensland Health. The project had a fixed project budget, fast tracked program, and required comprehensive consultation with a large number of stakeholders. The facilities offer minor injuries and illness care, as well as medical day, cancer care and outpatient services.
Guiding design principles were implemented to create a healthcare facility that is an accessible community space, with an emphasis on wayfinding and user wellbeing. These principles considered the journey from street to clinic and connections between inside and outside. The design features include bringing external materials inside, corridors with views to landscape, high-level windows, and courtyards encouraging daylight and views to deep within the plan.
Riverway Library | Counterpoint Architecture
The Riverway Library project breathes new life into a beloved community asset for the Townsville Community. The Thuringowa Library has been relocated to the existing precinct, seamlessly integrating with the Lagoon, Art Gallery, Sport Facilities, and Parklands. The transformed library occupies spaces formerly used for a performance venue and features a Café, bookable meeting rooms, a Changing Places Adult Accessible Change facility, and the innovative “MixHaus Makerspace.”
Overcoming design challenges, the project opens up the previously dark performance space, allowing natural light and views of the swimming lagoon and river. The library offers diverse spaces for quiet contemplation and collaborative work, including reading nooks, collaborative booths, and meeting rooms strategically placed with river views. The architecture embraces organic forms, with a unique curving ‘curtain’ defining the library space, paying homage to the former stage curtains while blending with the river landscape.
Wirrng Wirrng | Kerstin Thompson Architects
Wirrng Wirrng is a new community hub for Queenscliff, named by Corrina Eccles on behalf of Wadawurrung Traditional Owners after the phrase meaning listen with both ears. This invitation is reflected in the shared functions of library, museum, visitor information centre and community meeting place it is a building for learning, listening and communicating, and a reminder to listen to Country. Located on the main street, Wirrng Wirrng provides publicly accessible, inviting, and relaxing spaces for residents and its many visitors. The Queenscliffe Library, Visitor Information Centre and Queenscliffe Historic Museum have been co-located on the site for many years, with these new upgrades improving and supporting mutual interests. This facility prioritises environmental sustainability, flexibility, and functionality, seamlessly integrating heritage with existing building elements. External public amenity extends from footpath to rear laneway through considered urban furniture, front park, a 24-hour interactive building façade, sunny courtyard, and shady rear garden.
Yatala Labour Prison Redevelopment | Grieve Gillett Architects in association with Guymer Bailey Architects
The groundbreaking Yatala Labour Prison sets a new benchmark, transforming thinking about correctional facilities. Rooted in trauma-informed design, GGA integrated a range of measures to normalise environments to reduce stress, demonstrating a deep understanding of how the physical environment affects identity, worth and healing.
Originally intended as three equal sized new buildings to accommodate the additional 270 high-security beds, GGA proposed a revolutionary Therapeutic Wing broken into smaller human-scale environments tailored to vulnerable cohorts. While adhering to high-security requirements, biophilic design principles including natural light, natural materials, acoustic treatments, nature motifs and landscape views foster wellbeing, while choice of space indoors and outdoors promotes dignity and personal agency.
The innovative split Visits Centre with dedicated family room, fosters family connections that are a vital component toward mitigating reoffending. A new Staff Wellbeing Centre, Admissions and Catering & Operations facility complete the major redevelopment to support a new era in justice.
Victorian Heart Hospital | Conrad Gargett – now merged with Architectus + Wardle
The Victorian Heart Hospital (VHH) is the southern hemispheres first dedicated cardiac hospital, a place for clinical care, cutting edge research, treatment and education of the next generation of health professionals. The architecture, interiors, facility and clinical planning consider the impact of the built environment on the health and wellness of all users and has been guided by strong clinical and patient voices. The hospital is a valuable place within the university campus and wider community with its capacity to save and change lives.
The VHH is a building for people, a place of work and treatment the design contributes to the wellbeing of patients, clinicians and staff and aids patient recovery through its spatial qualities, amenity and materiality. Natural light permeates through the building, with the open central courtyard providing a landscaped space for viewing and occupying, it imparts the visual relief of nature which is evident throughout.
Tiwu Kumangka (Blackwood Library and Community Centre) | DesignInc
Tiwu Kumangka’ celebrates the coming together of community services and a library within the hills-based suburb of Blackwood. The project is a catalyst for the revitalisation of the town centre, catering to the needs of locals and responding to the council’s vision for a vibrant and active public realm. Tiwu Kumangka responds to its local context with a natural material palette and architectural details referencing the wide variety of landscapes within the City of Mitcham. The building’s scale, visibility, and accessibility invite the community to wander through its central ‘street’, providing pedestrian access to the adjoining street, shops, cafes, and Waite Street Reserve. The transparency and permeability of the building’s design promote the shared experiences and activities within. Shifts in volume and scale invite enquiry, connection, creativity and exploration through flexible community spaces.
