Caboolture
Super Clinic

Caboolture, Queensland

Healing environment principles are informing design across the health and aged care sectors. One of the principles is increased access to nature and landscape to benefit the wellbeing of patients, staff and visitors.

Landscape architecture draws the critical wellbeing aspect of greenery into spaces that are traditionally clinical and harsh. Architects and landscape architects, like Wilson Architects, are now working closely to design spaces that promote wellbeing, social opportunities and physical activity.

Super Clinics Health Care (SCHC) operates the Caboolture GP Super Clinic as part of the Federal Government’s GP Super Clinic program, which addresses the healthcare needs and priorities of the local community.

The brief for the design of Caboolture GP Super Clinic was to provide an easy-to-navigate, functional facility that supports wellbeing. It supports a range of allied health care spaces with 24 consult rooms, an acute care unit and also provides a fully equipped Wellness and Rehabilitation gymnasium.

A priority was to make the centre a community clinic, which is seen as part of the community with ownership from the community.

In unpacking and resolving the functional brief, Wilson Architects engaged extensively with the client and user groups to thoroughly understand the functional relationships and identify their individual and common requirements.  The process encompassed researching, understanding and incorporating current thinking in the design of best-practice medical and patient care facilities with an evidence-based design approach.

Wilson Architects’ research-led design approach focused on the experience of the occupants and visitors using a Salutogenic approach – a method coined by Professor of Medical Sociology Aaron Antonovsky. This approach promotes wellbeing in healthcare and focuses on factors that support human health rather than factors that cause disease.

Unlike institutional designs traditionally employed by clinics, the facility features vertical gardens, fish ponds and an atrium to foster a feeling of healing and respite.

The clinic surrounds a 350sqm courtyard atrium, which is designed as a landscaped break-out space and as an organising element for wayfinding and orientation. All waiting and circulation spaces present views of the courtyard, offering an outlook to nature, light and activity.

The courtyard atrium space is a double-height volume with 6-9m high landscaped (green) columns.

The courtyard planting was selected to provide an appropriate mix of plants with vibrant colours and textural variations to create visual interest. The large planted green column features Arum Lilies, Maiden hair ferns and Peace Lillies, while the other green columns provide a supporting vertical trellis for evergreen Golden Pothos (Epipremnum aureum) vines to climb towards the skylights above.

The integrated architectural and landscape design approach for the clinic balances many factors in ensuring suitable conditions for planting with low light levels deep within the courtyard. The design of planters and columns to support vertical gardens was carefully considered to ensure the outlook to thriving gardens. Careful plant selection and balancing of watering and nutrient levels to the gardens was of the utmost importance in maintaining this captured landscape.

The facility is conceived for human interaction, promoting concepts of health and wellbeing, as well as de-institutionalising what are often seen as clinical and alienating places. A café attracts local residents, cyclists and others to enjoy the landscaped atrium spaces.

The green spaces work to reduce energy consumption, improve air quality and assist with stormwater management. Meanwhile, the landscaping, ponds and café give staff a much-needed refuge from the stress of clinical work

Utilising ground plants, trees and shrubs moving through internal and external spaces create a sustainable, ecological order.

Healing environments ensure everyone feels welcome, including children. The clinic’s curved seating opposite the cubby play spaces were designed specifically for parents and children waiting for paediatric consults, which usually involve immunisations. The play and waiting spaces are separated from the main waiting areas to allow kids to explore, engage in play and be distracted from the clinical nature of their visit.

The cubby houses are clad in an American Oak timber veneer, while their interiors are lined with a flexible floor vinyl. These materials conform to the abstract curved shapes and create lounging spaces designed to capture the imagination of young children.

“When a building makes you feel this good, you just know that at the very beginning, someone stood here and considered all of the factors – light, space, breezes, ergonomics, and most importantly, how it was going to be used.”

– Fiona Heckelman, Caboolture local.