Grand
Pacific Health
Grand Pacific Health’s setting between the Shoalhaven Hospital and the new Cancer Care Centre could have been taken for granted however, as locals, we were aware of a magical bush walk just below the cliff top site. The outlook from the building across the Shoalhaven River is one of the most delightful views in Nowra.
Project Details
Client
Grand Pacific Health
Site Location
Nowra
The Solution / Outcome
The cliff top theme is reinforced by the articulation of windows setback from a seemingly arbitrary facade. Occupants of the building will have the feeling of peering out from a cave encouraging a sense of enclosure and security.
We sought inspiration from the work of Shoalhaven luminary, Arthur Boyd, one of Australia’s greatest painters. Boyd purchased a property on the Shoalhaven River, where his depictions of the infinite variety of this magnificent landscape fuelled his artistic imagination until his death in 1999.
The natural environment captured in Boyd’s images of the river with its filigree of trees shrouding rock formations and caves became the inspiration for the built form of the building. The steep cliff faces of the riverbanks, softened by layering of eucalyptus trees, all mirrored in the still waters of the Shoalhaven River have been reflected in the design of the façade. Rooms within the facility are clustered into functionally related spaces and these blocks were easily represented externally as ‘cliffs’ separated by the entry points to the building. The clinic is accessed through randomly spaced irregular posts simulating trees supporting the canopies above.
