オーストラリアのビクトリア州メルボルンにある老人ホーム。
Lyons Architectsにより、従来の老人ホームのセオリーを無視してビーチハウスまたは湖岸のホテルのような居心地の良い建築を目指したという施設です。
外壁のオリジナルタイル、採光用の出窓、ホテルライクなレセプション等の視覚的ハード面だけでなく、サービス動線や業務オペレーションにも建築家が深く関わっていることが垣間見える好印象な施設だと思います。
高齢化社会の日本にも老人ホームはたくさんあるのでしょうけれども
建築的に注目を集める施設はまだまだ少ないのではないでしょうか。
もしもデザインの力でお年寄りを元気づけることが出来たら・・・
仕事冥利に尽きますね。
The building contests the conventional paradigm of a nursing home. Through its spatial arrangements and normalising environment, it shifts from a medico-centric model of care to one where family and carers work with staff to deliver care to residents.
The language used to describe the workings of this facility is perhaps more akin to that of a hotel than a nursing home.
The reception presents like a hotel concierge desk - friendly and helpful. Generous corridors open up to the outside bringing in natural ventilation and light. Travelling between the rooms and the therapy rooms, one passes though the dining areas, interfacing with the rest of the community.
Each room was designed as bedrooms not ‘wards’. Each bedroom contains a bay window where a view out can be enjoyed, The repeating rhythm of these bay windows formally articulates the building along its length and works to control the hot summer sun.
The building takes the form of a large scale, folded pitched roof that encompasses the whole building, bringing together the spaces within. Sitting very close to the coastline the building reads like a big beach house or coastal hotel - not a hospital.
Taking from the beach house, the building appears ‘timber-like’- clad in oversized ‘timber’ planks which are rendered in brick. This operation gives the building a homelike scale and meets the serviceability requirements of the owner. The planks are figured with a combination of smooth and rough ‘timber’ grain, the latter constructed out of conventional house bricks embossed with a striated digital design.
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