STAIRWAY TO HEALTH

Off to a healthy start, Herston Quarter’s first landscape features lush gardens and a stairway to rival the Spanish Steps of Rome

A public realm that encourages collaboration and connectedness, Herston Health Precinct is a benchmark development under construction in Herston, Queensland. A five-hectare site in Brisbane’s inner north, Herston Quarter is a billion-dollar project that will result in facilities that combine healthcare with education, housing, retail opportunities and community spaces.

Chosen by the Australian Government to lead the redevelopment, Australian Unity, in collaboration with Metro North Hospital and Health Service and Economic Development Queensland (EDQ), is creating a visionary precinct that will reimagine healthcare in Australia.

The Surgical, Treatment and Rehabilitation Service (STARS) is the first building to be completed as part of this emerging project. Providing specialist care for rehabilitation, elective surgery and outpatient services, among other things, STARS emphasises high-level patient-focused care.

Completed by CBD Landscape Construction, the first stage of landscape works around the new STARS building offers visitors and staff lush landscapes to relax in and a magnificent stairway to aid access around the site, and links with the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.

Designed by architecture and design firm HASSELL, the STARS building landscape challenges preconceived notions of what a health environment should be. By removing the sterile, clinical approach to health facilities, HASSELL aims to create a setting that will improve the visitor experience and ensure more positive outcomes for recovering patients.

The completed landscapes achieved greater exposure to natural light and easy access to nature. The physical and geographical connection of the greenspaces to the building also reflect the notion of “uninterrupted care” — allowing users to remain in the same place, seeing the same familiar faces in the area, so as to provide reassurance, safety and familiarity to healing patients. An alfresco dining area reaches out to a rooftop deck, lush courtyards provide places to relax, and inbuilt precast concrete seating offer spaces to rest, eat or collaborate.

Working in accordance with this brief, CBD Landscape Construction completed all hard and soft landscaping works to achieve this first stage of the project. Super-advanced plantings were utilised across the various areas of the site to generate a lush landscape that welcomes everyone to the precinct. To ensure the survival of the plantlife, CBD Landscape Construction used a custom mix of podium soil. Combined with appropriate plant selection for the sub-tropical climate, the podium mix allowed the plants to thrive and support the established look desired of the new landscape.

In addition, the STARS landscape included a series of precast concrete elements stretching across the site. Required to think outside the box in order to achieve the extensive number of seating units and concrete planters needed to complete the design, CBD Landscape Construction was led to manufacture their own products. Working out of its Ormeau factory, the company manufactured the moulds for the units before pouring the precast concrete elements inhouse then transporting them to site for installation.

The final landscape now offers a wide range of durable seating options amid a sumptuous sea of greenlife that is easily accessible to patients, staff and visitors to the precinct at any time.

CBD Landscape Construction won the 2021 Landscape Queensland Commercial Landscape of the Year award for this project.

PROJECT PARTICULARS
Client Australian Unity
Location Herston, Queensland
Builder Watpac Construction
Landscape Architect HASSELL
Landscape Contractor CBD Landscape Construction

COMPANY
CBD Landscape Construction
P   07 5504 1977
E   info@cbdlandscapeconstruction.com.au
W  cbdlandscapeconstruction.com.au