BVN has designed a new, $470 million hospital for the city of Maitland in the Lower Hunter Valley in NSW.
The design was revealed as part of a State Significant Development application. The new hospital would be 70 percent larger than Maitland’s existing hospital.
The proposed seven-storey Acute Services Building will contain a wide range of facilities including emergency services, maternity services, operating theatres, mental health services and chemotherapy facilities.
Architecturally, the proposed building will feature a slender width and compact footprint.
“Together with the site’s contours and separation from urban context this results in a massing where the building is read as an object sitting within the landscape,” states the design report.
“In contrast to a building in an urban setting where a podium provides contextual streetscape consistency, the new hospital building has a direct relationship to the wider landscape. The massing of each of the ‘bar’ forms continues directly to ground.”
A double storey arbour will mark the entrance to the proposed Maitland Hospital by BVN.
Image: BVN
Materially, the hospital façade will feature reddish hues that reference other significant civic buildings in the city. Textured brick elements on the podium would be a nod to the site’s past as a brickworks quarry.
A double-storey shade device (or arbour) marks the entry to the hospital and acts as a “dynamic engagement between users and the building at pedestrian scale.”
“The arbour detail and pattern of the screening provide an opportunity to provide graphic references with meaning for the community,” the design statement reads.
The development application has been posted online for public feedback.
