Shaping the Future of Healthcare: Key Learnings from the Australian Health Design Conference 2024
The Australian Health Design Conference 2024 in Sydney reaffirmed its reputation as Australasia’s leading forum for innovation in healthcare design. Bringing together designers, government stakeholders, and healthcare professionals, the event explored how thoughtful, collaborative design can drive better health outcomes. Themes such as placemaking, downscaling healthcare environments, de-institutionalising care settings, and the rapid uptake of virtual healthcare dominated the discourse.
Key Takeaways Shaping Healthcare Design
- Virtual Care Redefining Hospitals: Virtual care emerged as a transformative model rapidly reshaping the future of healthcare since the arrival of COVID-19. By facilitating remote and home-based care, this approach reduces dependency on acute care facilities, enabling hospitals to focus on in-person treatment of complex cases. The design of healthcare environments must evolve to support this hybrid care model, blending technology with flexible virtual care spaces.
- Placemaking and Connection to Country: The importance of creating healthcare facilities that reflect their local context and engage meaningfully with First Nations communities was a standout theme. By collaborating with Indigenous elders and stakeholders, designers can integrate cultural narratives into healthcare environments, fostering a deeper sense of connection and healing. There are lessons for other diverse and multicultural communities here too.
- Balancing Standardisation and Site-Specificity: The conference highlighted the potential to merge standardised prefabrication techniques with bespoke, site-specific design. This approach enables scalable, cost-effective solutions while remaining sensitive to local community needs and environments. Many have tried but this remains a global design and construction challenge for healthcare.
The New Shellharbour Hospital: A Collaborative Achievement
At the conference, COX and STH (Silver Thomas Hanley) presented the new Shellharbour Hospital as a case study in innovative healthcare design. This collaboration showcases our combined expertise in delivering culturally responsive, human-centered, and sustainable healthcare facilities that serve their communities with distinction.
Located in the upper Illawarra region, the hospital reflects the cultural and environmental narratives of the Dharawal and Yuin nations. Its design draws inspiration from the local Five Islands Dreamtime story, with these cultural themes thoughtfully integrated into the hospital’s massing, façade, landscape, and interiors. This collaboration between COX and STH ensured that cultural narratives were deeply embedded throughout the project, creating a space that honours local heritage and fosters healing.
The design prioritises patient-centred care through human-scale environments, open courtyards, and daylit interiors. The facility also integrates state-of-the-art virtual care capabilities, enabling flexibility in care delivery and future-proofing the hospital against shifting healthcare directions.
Our shared vision extends beyond the building itself to consider the broader community and environment. Sustainability is a core principle, with passive design strategies, renewable energy, and water-efficient systems incorporated to reduce the hospital’s environmental footprint.
COX and STH: A Proven Partnership in Healthcare Design
The success of the new Shellharbour Hospital underscores the strength of the collaborative relationship between COX and Studio STH. Together, we bring complementary skills and shared values to healthcare projects, combining COX’s expertise in healthcare planning and design, and STH’s specialist knowledge of clinical planning. Our combined strengths in urban design, health facility planning, cultural integration and sustainability, further exemplify how collaborative design can achieve innovative solutions tailored to the needs of patients, staff, and the broader community.
Partnering for the Future of Healthcare Design
The New Shellharbour Hospital project demonstrates how COX and STH collaboratively deliver culturally attuned, sustainable, and future-ready healthcare environments. As healthcare continues to evolve, this project serves as a benchmark for integrating cultural storytelling, innovative care delivery, and human-centered design into healthcare architecture.
