Wonthaggi Community Health

"The project included the complete refurbishment of the existing 1980’s brick building on the site and the inclusion of a new office pod”

Client Name: Latrobe Regional Health

Area: 740m²

The project is for a new Community Health building located in Wonthaggi and operated by Latrobe Regional Health. The service had previously been located at Wonthaggi hospital in old building stock. The new project provided the opportunity to re-use the existing building on site and to create a modern facility for the service. The existing building has had many uses in the past, including its last life as a tech school. Slap Architects assessed the project and determined that the existing building was sufficient to be reused, saving the client some construction costs as well, as reducing the environmental footprint. The fitout includes several consulting rooms and treatment rooms in the existing building and the addition of a “pod” at the rear to house office staff. The consulting rooms provide high acoustic privacy. The pod uses the language of the existing 1980’s mansard roof canopy at the front of the building. Both the pod and the canopy were clad in raised seem roofing material.

The interior uses warm tones and materials to provide a less formal and less clinical feel to the user experience.

CGHS - Operating Theatre

"The New Operating Theatre provides the hospital with a new facility to service the community. With and state of the art equipment and design standards”

Client Name: Central Gippsland Health Service - Sale

Area: 250m²

Builder: CAD Build – (Formerly CM & HM Banks)

As part of ongoing capital works at the hospital is the provision of a new operating theatre and associated support areas. The facility is located on the roof space of the existing building designed in 1972 by the Architect – the late Stuart Ashton who was responsible for many of the buildings in Gippsland since the 1950’s. The design‘s intention is to complement the existing building forms and uses the language of the long slot windows and metal façade and reinterprets them. A custom made folded metal façade sites atop the existing brickwork, broken by the negative space of the slot windows. The façade changes appearance during the day with the varying shadows and light.

Nagle College Salesian Technology Precinct

“The Salesian Technology and Physical Education Precinct mark Nagle College’s commitment to upgrading their aging buildings and providing state of the art facilities for their students.”

Client Name: Nagle College Bairnsdale

Area: 2000m²

Builder: Brooker Builders

As part of Nagle college’s master plan, the Salesian Technology Precinct and Physical education buildings are part of recent upgrade works to replace existing aging buildings on the site and provide their students with state of the art facilities. Following on from the trade skills centre and Nano Nagle centre classroom developments, this marks the last project to replace facilities that have been on site since the 1970’s.

The Technology building comprises a central exhibition area that accesses the school’s existing sports hall which is also used for assemblies and functions. The exhibition area functions as the circulation space through the building and has an atrium that provides natural light. The school has installed in the atrium an Italian garden and mural to pay homage to Don Bosco.

The Technology building has a dedicated Textiles classroom, a general classroom, wood and metal working workshops and a new technologies classroom. In addition, there is a fully functioning commercial kitchen including food technology teaching area.

The Physical Education addition includes a classroom accessible to the sports hall, change rooms and a new entry area to the sports hall accessible from the carpark.

The exterior of the building is designed to be in keeping with the existing sports hall scale but has two very distinct entries to the Technology Precinct and the Hall. Both have a bold Aluminium clad canopy that reaches out towards the carpark. The Technology Precinct has a red canopy and the hall entry has a yellow canopy and which provides shelter at the entry for patrons before and after events. The hall entry has a sculptural off-form concrete area including a planter, wall and steps that lead to the change rooms.

The remainder of the exterior areas are brick with Australian Hardwood Timber blade walls to provide some visual warmth in contrast to the hard finishes.

The Technology Precinct interiors feature predominantly plywood walls and epoxy coloured flooring, a different aesthetic with practical robustness for a commercial work area. The ceilings are acoustic corrugated iron throughout. The central area has a plywood feature wall with a large back lit cross, large decorative suspended pendant lights and a racing stripe on the floor direct movement through the space.

Green and orange highlights are used through the interior as well, with a large suspended air conditioning duct that runs the length of the space.

The buildings are a statement of Nagle’s commitment to development and investment in their future.

Toorloo Arm Primary Multipurpose Building

“The school required a building that addressed the particular site issues”

Client Name: Toorloo Arm Primary School (Department of Education)

Area: 300m² + ancillary works

Construction Budget: $1.07m

Builder: CADbuild Construction (Formerly CM & HM Banks Builders)

This project consists primarily of a new Multipurpose Building that includes 3 separate areas that are linked by sliding walls to form a single area. In addition, there is a canteen which serves both the multipurpose area and is open to the external space.

The works also include renovations to the art room, a new open play area central to the school that has a grassed sports surface, works to the existing basketball court including extension of the court surface with a new roof over the court, and the resurfacing of the adjacent tennis court used by the school and community. The project provides several opportunities for community integration. The addition of a canteen to the school where previously there was none has provided the school with several new avenues for community involved events, catering for community events both in the multipurpose building and externally.

One of the major design influences was the orientation of the building, is located on the Eastern side of the site with a mostly Western facing facade. The building was located on the East Boundary to provide a connection from the building to the central grassed area and to maintain sightlines from the front of the school past the main buildings to the rear oval.

As the DET does not allow for air-conditioning but does allow for heating, this orientation affected the buildings’ form, with the requirement to ensure that it did not suffer from excessive Western Summer sun exposure. The roof form extends past the building line to form a walkway around the building and to protect the Western facade from the summer sun. In addition, a large timber pergola feature provides several functions including sun protection while also allowing a line of sight through to the central grassed area from the internal space and a break from the visual bulk of the building.

The school as a whole had undergone a major building upgrade in the previous year with the completion of a BER building that changed the way that the school approached their teaching and educational methodologies as they had previously only had single portable classrooms. As the school students and teachers used this new building their understanding of the opportunities that these new spaces afforded grew. This, in turn, helped to inform their brief for the new development. The school wished to subscribe to the model of flexible spaces with central areas that could be shared by single or multiple classes. This informed the design layout of the rooms in the new building.

Medical Consulting Suites – Latrobe Regional Hospital

“The building was designed to replace the existing consulting suites that were destroyed in a fire and to create a modern facility in keeping the the recent developments at the hospital.”

Client Name: Latrobe Regional Hospital

Area: 900m²

Builder: Farnham Developments

Construction Budget: $3.0m

Competed January 2018

The Latrobe regional hospital – Princes Highway consulting suites were destroyed in a blaze in May 2016. The hospital engaged Slap Architects to design a replacement building and it was competed almost 18 months later. The $3 million redevelopment includes more than 15 additional consulting suites comprising 33 in total as well as a number of treatment rooms for day procedures.

The stand – alone building presents itself to the hospital’s main street frontage behind a mounded soil berm . The architecture is informed by the recent developments of the main hospital using a similar material palette. The building form is a simple diagonally split rectangle that creates and entrance and glazed facades at the centre.

The entry is design with high ceilings that allow in plenty of natural light.

The exterior plant area has been highlighted with the use of red painted “Z” purlins to form a curved sculptural enclosure.

The interiors are a clean / modern design that utilises custom designed lights that delineate the spaces. Applied graphics and colour in furnishings are used to break up the spaces. The interiors are also designed to provide a contemporary space that is warm and moves away from the “clinical” spaces of previous decades.

As the building is quite long, the corridors have been given a “zig-zag” wall treatment to break up the visual length.

Nano Nagle Learning Centre

“The Nano Nagle Learning Centre is a new building that replaces the school’s aging stock and embraces the current teaching methodologies.”

Client Name: Nagle College Bairnsdale

Area: 980² + ancillary works

Construction Budget: $1.9m

Builder: Brooker Builders

The school required a new building that included 8 classrooms, a staff room, audio-visual presentation area and associated toilet facilities. The design reflects the current teaching pedagogy of multifunctional educational spaces, that can accommodate different modes of teaching. These include traditional classrooms with students facing a teacher, group teaching between classrooms, and one on one break out areas. This is achieved through a shared central area that can be used as a break out space from the classrooms, operable walls and large sliding doors that allow for endless configurations of the space. The space can also be opened up for special events and presentations. These operable walls have high acoustic values including double glazed stacking doors that allow for different types of classes to occur adjacent each other without disruptions to either. In addition, there is an outdoor learning area that provides a non formalised teaching space adjacent two of the classrooms. This space uses hardwood extensively to provide a softer more relaxed teaching environment with built-in seating and sun protection.

The building was designed to sit comfortably with the existing 1970’s & 1980’s brick classrooms adjacent. The building form is in scale with these buildings at the entry and then rises dramatically toward the rear. The building’s materials were selected to reflect these existing materials and reimagine them in a contemporary form. They included clay bricks and expressed hardwood detailing highlighted with a bold yellow façade. The building features a dramatic roof form that addresses the school’s entry to the South and the buildings main elevation. The interior uses a neutral palette with bright colour accents in the joinery and finishes. The central area is crowned with a custom-made light fitting that zig-zags through the space and draws the eye to the rear of the internal space. The audio-visual area at the back of the space has feature orange tiered seating and timber detailing. The building generally has an abundance of natural light with all of the classrooms having external windows and the central area having North facing openable highlight windows.

The new building demonstrates Nagle College’s commitment to it’s current and future students to provide state of the art facilities and learning environments that can be adapted to future needs.