PLACE Category Winner:

Bates Smart for Gandel Wing, Cabrini

The Jury was unanimous in selecting the Gandel Wing, Cabrini by Bate Smart as the Place category winner; an exemplary approach focusing on wellness and humancentred healthcare, creating spaces in partnership with nature and technology, and encouraging healing rather than simply treating disease.

At the heart of the Design is the transformation of the hospital into a welcoming and human-centric environment.

Natural daylight is used extensively, both in private rooms and public spaces. At the same time, operable windows provide natural ventilation with the use of i-glass technology, maintaining the highest levels of infection control and better personal privacy, allowing patients to self-manage their immediate environment.

The Design utilises salutogenic principles focusing on creating spaces in partnership with nature and technology, which encourage healing rather than simply treating disease.

Gandel Wing represents a high-grade spatial Design that not only meets the brief but delivers an experience for all users (not just the patients) that is very much human-centred. The spaces are welcoming, nurturing, and navigable and provide a sense of support for people going through challenging times in their lives.

Bates Smart approached every aspect of the Design through the patient’s lens to ensure new levels of dignity, comfort, and safety. The designs were formed with medical considerations in mind to ensure each room and facility successfully functioned from both a medical and aesthetic perspective.

To achieve this the design team worked collaboratively with medical teams, creating mock-ups of clinical and medical workspaces, ensuring medical necessities were not spared in the motivation for outstanding Design.

By collaborating closely with bespoke lighting designers, the designers developed products to meet the complex demands of the clinical environment to create an outcome that surpassed expectations.

The façade creates a gentle quality of light internally and considers the patient’s viewpoint in bed, allowing visual connectivity with the surrounding tree-lined neighborhood.

The Design Institute of Australia is committed to empowering designers who shape our lives and create our futures. This award highlights an outstanding ‘place’ and honours the architect and their ability to respond to the hospital’s evolving needs, comfort the lives of many, and serve the public good. Bates Smart has shown unparalleled design process abilities while responding to authenticity, diversity, equality, inclusivity, community, and the environment.

Category: Place

Designers: Mark Healey, Kevin Masci, Kristen Whittle, Tim Leslie, Ray Feile, Anqi Zeng, Aurelia Gachet