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Nestled on Peramangk Country in South Australia, the project sees a collaboration between Swanbury Penglase and Hassell Studio for a design to meet the rapidly growing needs of Mount Barker and the Adelaide Hills community, expanding the capacity and capability of the Barosssa Hill Fleurieu Local Health Network.

The new hospital will triple the inpatient capacity to 102 beds, enhancing the services across the maternity, paediatrics, rehabilitation, and mental health. Additionally it will feature new operating theatres, recovery beds, chemotherapy and renal dialysis services – ensuring comprehensive care for all.

‘’Ground in community and the local landscape, the New Mount Barker Hospital will be a culturally sensitive and and contemporary place of healing and respite’’ says Leanne Guy, Hassell’s Health Sector Lead and Principal.

Community engagement has been at the heart of project, with voices of key groups, including First Nations Community, Peramangk Peoples as Traditional Owners of Country, and the Adelaide Hills Pallative Care Group – informing every step of the design process. Our approach also emphasises the preservation of the neighbouring Duck Flat community gardens and wetlands, promoting biodiversity and enhancing the well being of patients and staff through deep connection to nature.

The idea for a new Junior School originated in 2018. Swanbury Penglase collaborated with Woodcroft College to develop a 20-year master plan, prioritising the construction of a new Early Learning Centre, followed by a two-story Junior School development to replace the existing precinct. That original Junior School, located at the opposite corner of the site, dated back to the early years of the College and consisted of over thirty transportable buildings.

A year after the Early Learning Centre was completed, and driven largely by its success, the College decided to move to triple streaming for the Junior School and thus a three storey building.

The transition represented a ‘cultural shift’ for teaching staff, who had been accustomed to the single-story ‘village-type’ Junior School for many years. The design team presented the benefits and opportunities of a ‘vertical village’ concept, with Learning Communities and specialist areas located around a central atrium—a space designed for both deliberate and incidental collaboration.

Loose furniture is provided throughout the breakout spaces to allow for flexible configurations. Breakout rooms on all three levels are designed for various uses, including collaborative group work—particularly for older students—quiet work time, or meetings between teachers, students, and parents.

Internal design colours, patterns and themes draw from the rich natural environment of the local area including references to Onkaparinga Gorge and River, the adjacent Bains Road Creek and the surrounding areas of bushland. This is most obviously expressed with a dynamic full height super-graphic wallpaper in the central atrium, including a series of native animals to discover.

The landscaping includes two specialist outdoor learning pavilions with custom perspex decorative screens to minimize weather exposure, offering options for structured teaching in the landscape or use during lunch and recess.

Wide balconies surround the building’s perimeter, providing direct connections from early years classrooms to the new Junior School landscape. Furthermore, direct visual links to the existing Early Learning Centre, as well as seamless access to the College oval, with amphitheatre seating and various play areas, enhance the educational, cultural, and functional opportunities offered by the new landscape.

Scheduled for completion 2024

Occupying a prominent position at the corner of MAB Circuit and overlooking the greenway reserve, the design for the Modo Apartments has been developed in direct response to its site context. Adjoining the Arete Apartment development to its north and located adjacent to the Vertex Apartments on the opposite side of the reserve, the Modo Apartments compliments its site context in form and materiality.

Careful planning of floor plates ensured the alignment of balconies and matching roof lines with the neighbouring development. The use of projected balcony boxes on the east and west façade reference the design of the balconies on the Arete Apartment providing consistency of form and scale.

On the south side, the building form bears resemblance to the composition of the Vertex Apartments including the saw-tooth roof profile which was developed in respect to the saw-tooth roofs of the historic Manufacturing Assembly Building (MAB).

Occupying the same footprint as the neighbouring Arete Apartments, clever design planning has led to an increase in yield, delivering more 3-bedroom apartments – most with views over the greenway reserve. Capitalising on the steep grade of the site, the separation of grade parking has served to provide 2 additional parking spaces – allowing 1 parking space for each apartment.

Large glazed windows and projecting balconies on the south façade serve to provide connection to and activation of the greenway reserve whilst contributing to provide flood lit internal spaces.

In 2017, Swanbury Penglase was approached by Peet to design a new 6-storey apartment building in Tonsley Village. The apartment was set to be tallest development in the residential estate providing a total of 28 dwellings comprising 1, 2 & 3-bedroom apartments.

The modest allotment had a steep grade from front to back creating many planning challenges including for site access and the planning of on-site car parking facilities. A number of parking options were explored including a multi-deck arrangement; however it was ultimately decided that a reduced number of on-grade parking spaces shall be provided. Car parking access was made available from the lower ground floor level from Alice Lane with separate public access provided from Eliza Place. Capitalising on the natural fall across of the site, the carpark is serviced by high-level grilles to provide natural ventilation avoiding the need for costly mechanical ventilation systems. Access from Eliza Place is via an external portico with stairs and ramps for disability access.

Designed around a central core, the apartment planning is highly efficient with minimum circulation corridors. Optimally proportioned, the apartments are planned to maximise access to natural light and ventilation with generous balconies and uninterrupted views.

The building is articulated through the design of projected balcony boxes and the application of painted squares to create a playful checkerboard pattern across the façade.

Scheduled for completion 2024

Named after its expressive roof form which was inspired by the saw-tooth roof of the Main Assembly Building (MAB) opposite, Vertex Apartments is the product of a long-standing and trusted partnership between Peet and Swanbury Penglase. Sitting pride-of place on MAB Circuit, Vertex Apartments brings a new expression to apartment living at Tonsley Village.

The development has been planned as four distinct buildings which will be delivered over four separate stages. The planning of separate buildings is designed to reduce the built form along the streetscape. Openings in the façade serve to allow access & views between the buildings improving the connection between Tonsley Village and MAB Circuit. The separation between buildings also provides improved access for natural light into the apartments with windows carefully positioned to prevent overlooking. As a gateway project into Tonsley Village, the apartments are designed with large private balconies providing activation of MAB Circuit. Extensive landscaping along the road verge provides a sensitive interface along MAB Circuit whilst providing screening for ground floor apartments.

The buildings are articulated by a series of ‘picture frames’ which define the edges of the balconies and serve to provide privacy between the apartments. With its saw-tooth roof and white metal cladding, the form is expressive of the distinctive saw-tooth roof of the MAB opposite. The linear composition and repeated forms are designed to emulate a row of townhouses contributing to a more residential scale. Overall, the selection of materials reflects the industrial history of the site and a sense of place in Tonsley Village.

The 4-storey development will be delivered using lightweight timber framed construction appropriately designed to meet the sound transmission and insulation provisions and fire-resisting construction requirements of the NCC.

Scheduled for completion 2025

Positioned along Alawoona Avenue and framing the gateway into the Tonsley Innovation District, Swanbury Penglase, in collaboration with Peet, will deliver a 4-stage, six-storey residential development providing a total of 120 dwellings with a choice of 1, 2 and 3 bedroom apartments.

The development has been planned around the provision for on-grade car parking accessible from the rear lane with apartment access located off Alawoona Avenue. An integrated landscaped verge will provide a sensitive interface with Alawoona Avenue which serves as a major thoroughfare for pedestrian access and connection to the Tonsley Railway Station. The landscape design and planting palette is consistent with the established landscaping throughout Tonsley and will contribute to enhance the landscape amenity along the road reserve.

The building design takes inspiration from site’s history as a car manufacturing plant. The use of repeated façade elements is a nod to the history of production of the assembly line whilst the intersecting folds and angles which form the reveals of the picture frame elements take inspiration from the metal forming processes in the production of car bodies.

The material palette, comprising blockwork, painted cladding, sheet metal and steel hoods and balustrades, is an honest reference to the site’s industrial heritage which allows the building to sit in harmony with its surrounding context. Artwork, in the form of large painted murals, will speak to the history of the site and celebrate its location as a gateway into Tonsley.

In 2020, Swanbury Penglase was engaged by UniSA to completely reinvent 9 Light Square, Adelaide as a workplace hub.

With a rich history in the west end of the city, 9 Light Square had many previous lives including a skins and hides warehouse, the ‘Dutch Club’, Le Rox Nightclub and the Night Train Theatre Restaurant.

Our disciplines of Architecture, Interior Architecture and Heritage worked in strong collaboration on this adaptive reuse project, finding the balance between discovering and celebrating the building’s unique history and modernising it to become a place of enterprise and innovation.

Across two levels, the Enterprise Hub accommodates over 100 people in a variety of dynamic working settings to support the cross-pollination of business groups and ideas, to foster connections and partnerships that may not have been obvious. Spaces are flexible and adaptable to support the changing needs of the users and include incubation suites, agile co-working hubs, workshops and open plan work areas.

The project also included a complete building analysis and services and safety upgrade to create a habitable place ready for occupation and maintain this important and historic site into the future.

Swanbury Penglase was engaged in 2019 to develop a major stage of the St Andrew’s School Masterplan – the establishment of a new front of School / entry building, new classrooms and a highly transparent and functional double storey workshop ‘Collaboratory” for senior years.

The Collaboratory faces onto the School’s new reception area and includes physical and visual connections to adjacent learning and teaching spaces. The workshop was developed after a Visioning Workshop and subsequent consultation with the School’s teaching staff – the intent to develop a space that could be ‘re-purposed’ and ‘reshaped’ to suit the changing needs of student groups.

The primary focus of the project become that of a large variegated educational space with multiple affordances to support a wide range of explorations in scientific and engineering areas and concurrent different activities by different group sizes. The workshop spaces enable students to set up projects and return to them on an ongoing basis over days or weeks.

The vision called for the space to be highly visible and transparent, with height, light and revealed structure to make the ‘embodied engineering’ apparent.

A highly collaborative venture between Swanbury Penglase and St Andrew’s School, the project was completed in early 2022 and has quickly become an important part of the School’s learning and teaching program.

Swanbury Penglase was engaged by DIT in late 2019 to realise the redevelopment of the Norwood Morialta Magill Senior Campus and its collocation with the Morialta Middle School Campus, bringing the site student population from 850 to over 1700.

The project involves the substantial redevelopment of almost all buildings and the provision of two new buildings – a three storey Middle School facility and a two storey Innovation Hub (home economics and art), connected closely to an existing building offering music and technical studies.

The project also involves the repurposing of an under-utilised cafeteria space to provide a dynamic new “Learning Hub”, locating centrally within the School, bringing together learning support, library services, international studies and IT. Collaborative and flexible spaces for learning and working are included within this area, drawing direct inspiration from tertiary design.

Other areas of the redevelopment include new workspaces, break out areas and flexible work opportunities where students and staff can work side-by-side.

The project also includes a new roof top deck playspace aimed at incoming Year 7 students as well as extensive landscape and site redevelopment to provide vibrant and dynamic play and social spaces and dramatically improve accessibility across what was previously a sloping site, consistent with the School’s foothills location.

Swanbury Penglase were engaged in April 2020 by Nexus Hospitals to undertake renovations and expansion of their existing Manningham Private Hospital located in the Manningham Medical Centre in Templestowe Lower, Victoria.

The Hospital specialises in ophthalmic surgery and associated services including laser surgery. The Hospital also undertakes a range of specialty surgery including endoscopy procedures within the three existing operating theatres.

An increased demand in endoscopy procedures has led to the need for a new specialised Endoscopy Suite which will in turn free up space within the existing Operating Theatres providing additional Ophthalmic surgical capacity.

In addition to creating a new Endoscopy Suite including two new Endoscopy Procedure Rooms with integrated Scope Reprocessing facility and dedicated recovery facilities, the project includes additional major works including a new Hospital entry and reception area, relocated Laser Suite and new staff facilities including staff room and change facilities. A new CSSD facility to increase capacity and ensure compliance with new infection control standards is also included.

Construction works shall be undertaken in 4 stages to ensure continuous uninterrupted operation of the existing hospital throughout the construction program.

The project is scheduled to be completed in January 2022.

Swanbury Penglase were engaged in August 2019 by Nexus Hospitals to design a new Hospital in Charlestown, New South Wales.

The existing Charlestown Private Hospital had been constructed within a building that was ill suited to it and lacked expansion capacity. Nexus Hospitals had identified a new site, located immediately adjacent to the existing facility, to develop a new Hospital to expand their capacity and surgical offering.

The new site presents some significant design challenges including its location adjacent to a major intersection, significant level changes and exposure to bushfires.

The design response was to:

• Provide 2 levels of basement level carparking which utilised the substantial fall on the site alleviating the need for substantial excavation and retaining.
• Provide 2 Levels of hospital floor space above with the bottom level directly accessing the Pacific Highway.
• Tenanted levels of the building were set 20m back from the rear boundary which, when combined with substantial height separation, provided a buffer against the bushfire risk.

The Hospital contains four Operating Theatres and clinical support spaces located on the top level with the 8 Ward Rooms, Entry, Reception Administration and staff facilities located on the lower level.

In 2021, following a comprehensive registration of interest and tender process, SA Health signed an agreement with Nexus Hospitals to develop a new Medical Centre on the Repatriation Hospital site at Daw Park.

The project will enable the delivery of both public and private surgical capacity, with the public surgery increasing capacity across the public health network.

The Surgery will include:
> Ophthalmology
> Orthopaedic
> Plastics & reconstructive
> Ear Nose and Throat
> Endoscopy
> General surgery

The facility will include:
> 8 theatres
> 30-bed overnight capacity
> 20-chair renal dialysis unit
> GP clinic
> Radiology
> Pathology
> Pharmacy
> Cafe
> areas for specialist medical and other allied health services
> Integrated 350 car multi-deck carpark

Work has involved a substantial collaborative design process with Nexus and SA Health to enable an appropriate integration into the existing Repatriation Health Precinct and the improvement of vehicular and pedestrian access across the site including substantial additional carparking.

The project involves extensive consultation with medical specialists, other building occupants and broader community stakeholders; a well managed process that enables a collaborative ‘buy-in’, across the board.

Demolition works have recently commenced to make way for the new facility.

Construction is expected to start in early 2023 and be completed by end of 2024.

View 3D video here: https://www.facebook.com/swanburypenglase/videos/219312340036988/