Designing big: The public face of private dining

Kristen reports in on the new Royal Children's Hospital in World Health Design.

Philip Vivian comments in the Australian Design Review.

A great deal has been written about good workplace design as a key element in creating staff engagement, teamwork and productivity. Our resources-led economy has cushioned us from many of the effects of the GFC for now.  

Australia has returned to full employment, taking the form of as a “two speed economy”, relatively frantic in resources-related businesses and quite subdued outside this sector. What does this say about workplace design in 2011?

Bates Smart architect Torsten Fiedler recently conducted an in-house learning seminar on the history of the curtain wall. 

This tantalizing teaser led a team from Bates Smart Melbourne and Sydney offices to the annual Australia and New Zealand Pacific Hotel Industry Conference at the Sydney Hilton.

For two days we were immersed in panel discussions of current  hotel development forecasts within the Australian, New Zealand and Pacific region.

Law firms continue to experience high rates of attrition of young talented lawyers, exiting the profession to pursue vastly different careers – hospitality, the arts, not-for-profit organisations and design. 

Why is this the case and what can law firms do from a design perspective to retain and support the best employees?

Bates Smart Director Sheree Proposch explains that an Emergency Department (ED) is in effect a ‘front door’ of a hospital, whereby around one third of the patients could eventually require admittance to the inpatient unit.

It is an environment with high levels of emotion and activity, multidisciplinary diagnostics and complex decision making.

“It was a great privilege and a remarkable experience to work with a dedicated team of design and healthcare professionals on the new Royal Children’s Hospital, which I believe will become a significant public building for Melbourne and Victoria.” says Leanne Guy.

"The Royal Children's Hospital project was a deeply complex and rich experience," says Mark Healey.

"The Public Private Partnership(PPP) process was a new experience for most, but one which ultimately produced a remarkable product which will serve Melbourne and Victoria's children for many years to come.

Lead design architect Mirjana Sazunic has spent the past 4 years on the RCH project and found the experience to be both profoundly challenging and rewarding.

Bates Smart Director Kristen Whittle talks about the evolution of the distinctive facades at the Royal Children's Hospital, "Gardens have been proven to be a natural source of restoration.

Bates Smart Design Director Jeff Copolov features in the first of the Australian Design Review series in conversation with IDEA Gold Medalist, Janne Faulkner AM.

Yes it is official: the new RCH has been opened by HRH Queen Elizabeth II with the Duke of Edinburgh and many other dignitaries.  It was on a perfect, sunny, blue sky, Melbourne spring day and was broadcast on national television.

Melbourne illustrator Jane Reiseger was commissioned to produce a range of ‘scenes’ of unique Victorian regions to be used as the basis for a child-friendly way-finding strategy developed by our wayfinding consultants Buro North, and as a range of environmental graphics created by Bates Smart and Billard Leece Partnership.

Jane's work was a fundamental part of the colour strategy, her illustrations were coordinated with finishes on each level.

Working on the new RCH from schematic design right through to technical completion has been the most rewarding and challenging experience.

The 25,000sqm of workplace created for the Royal Children’s Hospital teams, the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute and the University of Melbourne within the new Royal Children’s Hospital represents a fresh new direction in workplace design within healthcare environments.

In today’s age, sustainable design involves reducing a buildings carbon footprint but also the longevity and quality of the built solution.

Bates Smart Director Kristen Whittle discusses the challenge of creating a wholly sustainable healthcare building. `The new RCH has created a significant benchmark for hospital design worldwide where the highest standards of human comfort and sustainable design have combined to create a truly holistic built form solution.

The striking 14m high colourful, curling, tentacled sculpture, known as ‘Creature’, is immediately visible upon entry to the internal ‘Street’.

It is a key wayfinding landmark, strategically placed outside Ambulatory Care, the busiest department in the hospital.

After millennia in natural environments, humans have contrived to develop urban communities of great convenience, but with little of the soft natural fascination of our ancestors’ environment.

Parkland gives us back the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the pleasing, recuperative qualities of nature, engendering the simultaneous combinations of rest and stimulation which can aid healing.

The strong nexus created between nature and architecture in the concept design posed some huge challenges to the design team in translating the inspirational images into a built form.