St Vincent de Paul aged-care facility from Woodhead
Woodhead’s St Vincent de Paul aged-care facility was purposely designed to create a less institutional look and feel for the recently completed Geelong development. A secure and healthy environment was a main objective in the design.
Made up of four buildings, off-street parking and landscaping, the Woodhead-designed St Vincent de Paul aged-care facility comprises three buildings accommodating residents and a fourth housing administration.
In sympathy with the site and to create more of a residential streetscape frontage, the accommodation buildings are positioned around the administration building.
Woodhead Melbourne Principal and aged-care design specialist, Derek Pitt, said, “The development was designed with the resident’s needs and operational efficiency in mind.”
“Access from the administration section to the residential areas, for instance, is via a covered link, that ties all four buildings together. These links lead to the living dining and service zones of the accommodation buildings creating a sense of arrival into each house.”
“The functional zones in turn spill out to either their respective courtyards or the residential wings.” Woodhead designed the facility to further take the needs of the elderly into consideration by incorporating sustainable design strategies and practices throughout the scheme.
The roof shape, for example, of all living areas and residents’ rooms was designed to maximise day light, cross-ventilation, solar control and accommodate solar collectors for water heating and electricity production.
The implementation of thermal mass internally, lightweight insulated external cladding and heating and cooling devices such as hydronic heating, ceiling fans and evaporative cooling add further environmentally sustainable design features to the development.
Other environmental factors, such as material selection, minimising site impact and maintenance, effective use of rainwater, and the incorporation of trees, plants, land and water features to help control internal conditions were taken into consideration.
Derek Pitt said, “These features not only make the development more environmentally sustainable but also create a healthy and calming environment for residents in buildings that breathe due to clever strategies to make the buildings light and airy in the warmer months and warm and comfortable in colder months.”
18-Sep-2008