Sited on the edge of a large wallum basin in the Noosa National Park on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast, this care centre for elderly people is being developed by local architect John Mainwaring to a non-traditional and climate-responsive design. A prime concern is to refine a large complex to domestic scale and generate a ‘beach-house and garden’ sensibility for the comfort of residents and staff.

Stage 1 comprises the administration building, a 30-bed nursing wing and a 20-bed special care (dementia) facility. The administration zone has back-of-house functions such as the laundry and morgue separate from the entry and offices. It is linked to the nursing wing by an ‘urban’ street which “expands, constricts, bends and opens out” to a variety of landscaped courts. The special care facility, developed with advice from the Alzheimer’s Association, is a discrete building. The plan is fragmented into a four-step hierarchy of indoor, semi-enclosed and outdoor spaces.

The design approach consciously rejected the notion of attempting to recreate an environment from the past by using Federation imagery. The authenticity of which is always dubious. Rather, we have designed an environment that provides comfort, warmth and reminders of the past, whilst remaining modern and optimistic. This positive approach uses a pallet of light, shade, space, tactile materials and colours evocative of the “coastal architecture” developing in the Sunshine Coast region.

This has translated into staff and visitor moral which directly affects the nature of the care given in a positive way.

Variation in form, structure and materials without fake gables etc, gives the building its character and village atmosphere and acknowledges it as part of the (sub) urban background or matrix as opposed to a town icon or monument.

The natural light and different view vistas to the new and existing landscaping and various external building finishes provide further visual interest and stimulus.

The facility has the feel of a beach side convalescent home with open space clerestories and verandahs.