Last year the Australian Government held a design competition to illuminate the design guidelines which came out of the Royal Commision into Aged Care.

In May 2024 the winners of that competition were announced.

This is the highly commended scheme Jacqueline Bartholomeusz, Lorraine Calder, Peta Miskovich and I submitted.

The competition jury had this to say about our scheme..."A sophisticated building proposition that merges family clusters and personal resident room configurations within an organic circulation and socialisation spatial weave bounded by landscape. Cascading gardens with innovative and functional 'tree columns' and a 'main street activity centre' holds this two-neighbourhood building composition together.

"A creative jigsaw of household, private and socialisation space presents as an exciting and varied yet fundamentally legible and enabling environment.

"The Jury was intrigued by the intelligent hierarchy of internal resident 'neighbourhoods' expressed as small clusters of bedroom suites with discrete get-together spaces, integrated by larger shared living spaces to 'host a variety of ordinary home activities' and sun and light filled outdoor terraces 'to meet residents of adjoining households'.

"The Jury noted that the proposal presented as an appropriately scaled development that invited incidental resident and local socialisation. At ground plane the 'main street' configuration and community integration and controlled connectivity to upper residential levels is well handled. The Jury commended the significant areas of landscape and vegetation - at all levels and in multiple locations – as being of real value to residents and to staff providing a sensory natural environment of pleasure and beauty within the urban context.

"The Jury also commended the detailed spatial planning evident in the proposal which interrogated the Principles and Guidelines with creative flourish and innovative translation."