Stafford Vet Hospital
Stafford Vet Hospital
Vokes and Peters
LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT
Citicene
INTERIOR DESIGNER
Vokes And Peters
BUILDING SERVICES
Lucid Consulting
DESIGN TEAM
Stuart Vokes, Aaron Peters, Emma Robinson, Hugh Nagle, Nicholas Skepper, Nick Russell, Jarred Gunn, Emma Denman
PROGRAM / USE / BUILDING FUNCTION
Specialist Veterinary Hospital
BUILDING CERTIFIER
Building Certification Consultants
STRUCTURE AND CIVIL
Greg Killen Consulting Engineers
SIGNAGE DESIGNER
Gangplank Studio
PHOTOGRAPHS
Christopher Frederick Jones
AREA
1300 M²
YEAR
2021
LOCATION
Brisbane, Australia
CATEGORY
Veterinary Clinic
The Stafford Vet Hospital is a world-class specialist veterinary facility operated by Queensland Veterinary Specialists and Pet ER, offering both elective and emergency patient care.
As well as promoting animal welfare, the wellness of clients and staff is equally considered in the design of the hospital. Good clinical work is delivered when people feel healthy, professional and happy. This is the principal role of architecture in this setting.
With both animals and humans in mind, the first room encountered is a roofless entry garden, offering the presence of nature – the ground, the sky, vegetation and emptiness.
The garden room is a place of pause and calm, providing an opportunity for a dog to pee and its owner to gather themselves prior to entering the hospital.
Understanding one’s relative position and orientation in a building can have a bearing on feelings of comfort and well-being. The garden, albeit small, provides a key way-finding element at the entry to the building.
All publicly-accessible spaces are arranged around this light-filled outdoor room.
This is of particular consideration for veterinary practices as their functions are best accommodated by ‘deep plans’ (floor plans that are multiple-rooms wide in any direction).
As a humane response to its deep plan, the animal hospital is penetrated by a network of circulation corridors for human and animal movement, allowing natural light and ventilation to slice through the plan.
Numerous large skylights also deliver daylight into key intersections of these cuts.
These porous moments in the plan invite the presence of natural phenomena and register time and the nuance of outside light conditions throughout the day.
Circulation paths are widened to facilitate occupancy and encourage social interaction between professionals and the cross-pollination of ideas and knowledge across disciplines.
In the absence of overt retail signage, the building form and material further conceals the inner function of the building.
The hospital envelope is curiously opaque in a conscious attempt to preserve the privacy and dignity of clients and patients, and to enable a range of medical and surgical activities to occur discreetly.
