Restorative effects: Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS)

The design of the Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) by Hassell capitalizes on the benefits of greenery on health while laying down the framework for a successful future pedestrian precinct in inner-Brisbane.

Brisbane is easing into its emerging urbanity somewhat hesitantly. The city has encouraged rapid development of its inner ring and CBD, including high-density commercial and residential development and, recently, the large-scale infrastructure required to provide cross-city connections – roads and bypasses, high-speed bus- and bike-ways, and underground rail. However, it has been less successful in providing the budgets and design focus necessary to integrate this infrastructure with local conditions and to convert the post-industrial areas and older neighbourhoods where that development is concentrated into places actively connected by pedestrian activity and e-mobility. This lack of recognition, combined with Brisbane’s particularities – fierce heat, steep topography, a tortuous riverine spine and maze-like streets – makes the creation of pedestrian legibility and comfort especially challenging.

Therefore, where projects do appear that demonstrate the forethought, skill and creativity needed to promote pedestrian activity at a precinct-wide scale, they are important to acknowledge. There are a mere handful altogether. The commercially driven initiatives of the last decade – James Street, the RNA Showgrounds, Fish Lane – now add to the original iconic precincts driven by government of three and more decades ago. These include the Arts Precinct and South Bank, the Teneriffe Woolstores, QUT at Gardens Point and Kelvin Grove Urban Village, and the Queen Street Mall – all places that now embody that elusive quality of the subtropical city, where life can be enjoyed outdoors as well as in.

The most recent addition to the list is the first stage of Herston Quarter, a new health facility known as STARS (Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service). The redevelopment is located adjacent to Victoria Park, Bowen Park and the RNA Showgrounds – all of which are, however, accessible only by using or crossing major roads, rail- and bus-ways or road viaducts.

Trellises are integrated into the building’s facade treatments and support climbing vines.

Trellises are integrated into the building’s facade treatments and support climbing vines.

Image: Scott Burrows

The STARS site cascades down a 20-metre slope to Herston Road and its bus station, which are both set in Victoria Park. Given this challenging topography, it would have been most expedient to internalize pedestrian movement using lifts within the building. Such an approach would, however, have restricted access to and from the hospital’s heritage core, a cluster of listed historic buildings and spaces on the hilltop. The elegant verandahs, arched facades and leafy courtyards of these buildings, which date back to the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, reference the Spanish Mission style and contrast dramatically with the monolithic scale and modernist character of the later buildings that now surround them. Because of its inviting, human qualities, the core has been earmarked for future community and commercial, rather than clinical, use.

The design of the internal and external areas of the newly completed precinct hark back to the human qualities of the historic core, while the facility provides cutting-edge medical treatment that includes specialist rehabilitation, elective surgery and outpatient services. As project designers, Hassell has based its approach on the argument that visual and physical access to nature has beneficial effects on health, encouraging recovery processes and promoting wellbeing. The practice supports this argument by quoting theories expounded by Clare Cooper-Marcus who, along with Marni Barnes and a swathe of others since, has further developed the theories initiated by Roger Ulrich in the 1980s that link human wellbeing with the experience of nature.

A public lift facilitates access to the building, with visual connections to the Brisbane cityscape beyond.

A public lift facilitates access to the building, with visual connections to the Brisbane cityscape beyond.

Image: Scott Burrows

Throughout the building and public realm, subtropical plantings have been sited for maximum restorative benefit.

Throughout the building and public realm, subtropical plantings have been sited for maximum restorative benefit.

Image: Scott Burrows

To realize their goals, Hassell’s project team of landscape architects, architects and interior designers created multiple visual connections from internal circulation, wards and respite spaces – first, to the landscape of nearby Victoria Park and the cityscape beyond, and second, to the newly created landscape surrounding the building itself. This created landscape comprises two major pedestrian axes and an internal courtyard around which the building is organized, along with an entrance plaza to Herston Road and a mid-level planted balcony on the Victoria Park facade.

The primary axis, known as The Spanish Steps to reference the Spanish Mission style, provides visual connections to the core from Herston Road, the nearby Inner City Bypass and Victoria Park. The secondary axis, known as Lamington Place to reference the adjacent Lady Lamington building, connects across the site at mid-level. Publicly accessible spaces are organized along these axes and planted to provide a sense that nature is always nearby, whether undercover or outdoors, in-ground or over-slab. The axes are supported by the substantial central courtyard, which constitutes a series of spatially linked but distinct sub-spaces. Physical access to the courtyard is encouraged from the adjacent dining and respite rooms, while the space’s lush greenery (which covers 70 percent of the area, in line with theory) can be seen from all surrounding rooms and their balconies.

Having created the spatial opportunities at the site-planning stage, the landscape architecture team further developed and detailed the project to deliver the kind of immersive experience of nature that only the subtropics can provide – lush, rich greenery with flowering species carefully sited to provide seasonal change. While relatively modest in overall area, the planting is always sited and designed for maximum restorative impact – massed, textured, fragrant, shady, moist and colourful – a dramatic contrast to the clinical experience inside.

Transitions from planting over-slab to ground are seamless, with planter depths carefully modulated to support substantial depths under trees. Where possible, the edges of planting areas are at pavement level rather than raised to increase the illusion of being on ground. Careful detailing of windows, doors and balconies maximizes views to the key landscape spaces (courtyard, pedestrian axes, broader city landscape and sky) from surrounding corridors and rooms. Vines reach to upper levels, supported by trellises that are integrated with facade treatments. Engagement with nature, albeit human-manufactured nature, is encouraged at every opportunity.

Windows offer views from surrounding rooms into the building’s richly planted internal courtyard.

Windows offer views from surrounding rooms into the building’s richly planted internal courtyard.

Image: Scott Burrows

Greenery covers 70 percent of the building’s internal courtyard, amplifying health benefits.

Greenery covers 70 percent of the building’s internal courtyard, amplifying health benefits.

Image: Scott Burrows

The Spanish Steps are, in themselves, a positive contribution to the broader cityscape, with the landings for the main flights surrounded by planting of intricate design. Purple flowering jacarandas shade the pedestrian route and provide a visual link to the traditional remnant planting of Victoria Park and the heritage core. As with other successful pedestrian spaces in inner Brisbane, it is the dominance of the planting that creates character.

By careful, well-balanced site planning, consistent design detail and rigorous execution, everything that is needed for a successful pedestrian precinct in inner Brisbane has been established in Herston Quarter’s first stage. The next stages of delivery will test that quality in two ways. The first is whether the maintenance of the landscape areas – now transitioning from the construction contract to the asset managers – can, in the long-term, support and manage the rich vegetation in line with the design intent, rather than reverting to the simplification and standardization more typical of institutional maintenance programs. The second is whether ensuing stages, including the heritage core, can manifest the quality of design and delivery exhibited by the first. Both Brisbane as a city and the hospital precinct itself deserve that.

Plant list

Trees: Cupaniopsis anacardioides (tuckeroo); Delonix regia (flame tree); Diploglottis australis (native tamarind); Ficus rubiginosa (Port Jackson fig); Flindersia schottiana (bumpy ash); Harpullia pendula (tulipwood); Jacaranda mimosifolia (jacaranda); Peltophorum pterocarpum (yellow flame tree); Randia fitzalanii (native gardenia); Tabebuia palmeri (pink trumpet tree)

Palms: Archontophoenix cunninghamiana (Illawara palm); Licuala grandis (ruffled fan palm); Licuala ramsayi (Australian fan palm); Livistona australis (cabbage-tree palm)

Accent species and groundcovers: Alpinia (alpinia) (multiple species); Asplenium nidus (bird’s nest fern); Aspidistra elatior (cast iron plant); Blechnum (hard ferns) (multiple species); Calochlaena dubia (soft bracken); Casuarina glauca ‘Cousin It’ (swamp she-oak); Cordyline (palm lillies) (multiple species); Cyathea cooperi (Australian tree fern); Dichondra (multiple species); Dichorisandra thyrsiflora (blue ginger); Dioon spinulosum (giant dioon); Doryanthes (multiple species); Ficinia nodosa (knobby club rush); Heliconia (multiple species); Liriope (multiple species); Monstera deliciosa (Swiss cheese plant); Myoporum ellipticum (creeping boobialla); Neomarica (multiple species); Pittosporum tobira ‘Miss Muffet’ (Miss Muffet pittosporum); Plectranthus australis (Swedish ivy); Senecio mandraliscae (blue chalksticks); Zamia furfuracea (cardboard palm)

Climbers: Beaumontia grandiflora (easter lily vine); Ficus pumila (creeping fig); Ipomoea horsfalliae (cardinal creeper); Tecomanthe hillii (Fraser Island creeper); Thunbergia mysorensi (lady’s slipper vine)

Credits

Project
Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS)
Design practice & principal consultant
Hassell
Australia
Project Team
Kevin Lloyd, Daniel Kallis, Stephen Watson, John Irvine, Guy Grigson, David Gowty, Keth Hayes, Tarek Barclay, Carla dal Santo, Chantel Antony, Graham Lowe, Jennifer Greatex, Jared Thorpe, Kevin Hu, Marnie Reid, Natalie Johns, Sandra Forko
Consultants
Acoustics engineer Stantec
Certifier Certis Group
DDA Consultant Morris Goding Access Consulting
Design and construct Besix Watpac
Facade engineer Inhabit
Fire engineer Warringtonfire
Health Planning Architect Hassell
Hydraulic engineer MRP Hydraulic and Fire Services Consultants
Interior design Hassell
Kitchen consultant The Mack Group
Landscape architect Hassell
Mechanical, medical gas, electrical, ICT, security, lighting, wet fire, dry fire engineer Integral Group
Radiation shielding consultant Radiation Services Group
Structural and civil engineer Calibre Group
Traffic engineer Cambray Consulting
Urban design Hassell
Wayfinding dotdash
Aboriginal Nation
Built on the land of the Turrbal and Yuggera peoples
Site Details
Location Brisbane,  Australia
Project Details
Status Built
Design, documentation 13 months
Category Health, Landscape / urban
Type Hospitals, Outdoor / gardens, Wellness
Client
Client name Australian Unity
Website australianunity.com.au

Source

Review

Published online: 3 Mar 2022
Words: Catherin Bull
Images: Hassell, Scott Burrows, scott burrows

Issue

Landscape Architecture Australia, February 2022

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