Healthcare Architecture At 33°52' S 151°13' E

Hussain Varawalla

Author: Bligh Voller Nield
Publisher: China Architecture & Building Press
No Of Pages: 257

Hey, that's a hello from healthcare architecture from Down Under, St Vincent's Hospital, Darlinghurst, New South Wales, Australia, to be precise. The hospital has been designed by Bligh Voller Nield (BVN), an architectural firm with offices in Sydney, Brisbane, Canberra and Melbourne. The project is featured in a book on their work, titled:

27°27' S. 153°02'E
33°51' S. 151°12' E
35°17' S. 149°07' E
37°48' S. 144°58' E

Which I assume are the latitude and longitudes of their four office locations mentioned above (I'm too lazy to check…).

I see your shoulders slump with resignation. This bloody-minded man is inflicting on us yet another bloody book review! Well, let me say in self-defense that I will be reviewing only one project mentioned in the book, 33°52' S 150°13' E or St Vincent's Hospital, precisely.

The Design Director was Lawrence Nield, at present the most senior principal in the firm, and the Project Directors were Sarita Chand and Tim Brook. The project was commenced in December 1997 and completed in 2000. In 1999, Sarita Chand became one of the principals in BVN. Still is. We can only conclude she did something right with St Vincent's Hospital. In the write-up on her in the book, there are five other hospitals mentioned under significant projects, including the new Children's Hospital at Westmead, but nothing else! None of the other 13 principals has a hospital mentioned in their 'significant projects'. Little wonder, since Sarita is BVN's resident expert on major health and hospital facilities. She has got a Bachelor's Degree in Architecture from New Delhi in 1970. Way to go, Sarita. A shining example of what Indian women can achieve in fields other than politics, in which of course, along with their sisters from Italy, they excel.

St Vincent's is a 'typically inner-city modern hospital' that has halved its beds (to 310) while treating much larger numbers of patients. Sixty per cent of the activity of the hospital is on a day care basis. The development of St Vincent's brought together a major public hospital and a private hospital, which currently share their treatment and diagnostic facilities as well as the hotel facilities. Considerable thought has been given to the shared space; for instance, there are large shared spaces between the public wards. An extensive emergency department on the ground floor is linked to the radiology department. Escalators link the ground floor to the floors above, which has day surgery, cardiothoracic, oncology and associated clinics. Surgery, endoscopy, interventional radiology and the cath lab/EPS lab are housed in a single zone. This was the first Sydney hospital using 'planned' patient central zones.

There is an extensive art programme with a major glass piece called 'The Gift' by Neil Roberts at the main entrance. This uses a cosmology of everyday drinking glasses. "In so many circumstances — sickness, thirst, deprivation, crisis — an offering of water is the first sign of caring," says Neild about the artwork. He goes on to say it also gazes at the stars. 'The heavens express the infinite scale of the universe. To some they are the place of their God, to others simply an embodiment.' We all need to stop rushing about and gaze at the stars now and then, and I guess when you or somebody you love is admitted to a hospital is as good a time as any, a time when a virtue becomes a necessity.

A garden thoughtfully provided outside the main entrance provides a place for interaction between the hospital and the city, between 'patients and their families'. In India, we would rewrite that as 'patients and their families, relatives, friends and business associates'. A good thing for the patient, a pain for hospital administrators and of course the architect working within a tight budget has to find the space in his carefully laid out plans for this interaction. Inner-city hospitals in India very rarely have the luxury of being able to afford a garden on their site.

Lawrence Neild, in his Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) discourse lecture in 1999, says:

"This book records the significant buildings and projects of Bligh Voller Neild. It is appropriate that the projects are ordered and located by latitude and longitude — by their place in the world. For our architecture regional differences remain significant, equally significant is the narrative of life and lives in our architectural frames — the people of our projects. The practice's work is about providing a vantage point, a home or a work space, that is either a celebration of an event or an activity. The buildings and projects are architectural narratives about people. They are about providing support and background for human activity and not on conquering the foreground. The works and projects seek to accommodate rather than to impress. They seek to invoke recognition through sensation. The architecture of sensation is about the sense of touch, rather than the 'astonishment of the eye', about language developed from materials and surfaces. Neild eschews a house style; its buildings are informed by an alternative tradition of readings of architectural history, in sympathy with humanitarian, cultural and, in the most serious way, sustainable values. Each building and project is a different essay on these themes."

It's longer than my usual punch lines, but better. I leave you with it.

The author is Director - Design Services at Hosmac India Private Limited, Hospital Planning & Management Consultants.
E-mail: hussain.varawalla@hosmac.com