HammondCare

The Greenwich Hospital Redevelopment project will create an integrated health campus. The concept consists of a 150-place hospital and healthcare facility, with a mix of inpatient beds and residential aged care beds (including dementia care).

Other services to be offered at the campus include in-home care for seniors through HammondCare, and the continued research and education functions of the Dementia Centre, the Palliative Centre and the Centre for Positive Ageing. Cars will be relocated to the basement parking, maximising green space on the leafy 3.6 hectare site on the lower north shore of Sydney.

Planning approval was received in 2020 from the Independent Planning Commission for the concept on the 3.6 hectare site. The decision noted: “… the proposed integrated hospital and seniors living development is strategically justified and is in the public interest, and that the identified impacts can be appropriately managed through the conditions of consent imposed, and through the subsequent detailed application.”

Design development is currently being undertaken for this landmark project.

In 2019, HammondCare was successful in a bid to set a new standard in providing dementia care services in South Australia. Part of the State Government’s response to the release of the Oakden Report, the 42 hectare land lease formed part of a redevelopment of the wider Repatriation Hospital site in Daw Park, Adelaide.

This opportunity to partner with HammondCare in South Australia combined master planning skills (Miranda) with the lessons learned in dementia care (Horsley). A study of existing sites highlighted key principles that informed six master plan options. Further refinement in ongoing consultation led to a concept that captured existing elements while providing for different layers of community.

The proposed design is a neighbourhood of six cottages, designed around a central park. Each cottage invokes elements of the bungalow style, featuring prominently within garden suburbs around the world and including the adjacent Colonel Light Gardens. This is a nod to Colonel William Light, an instrumental figure in the planning of Adelaide. He was influenced by the great thinker Ebenezer Howard, whose 19th century ‘Garden City’ movement became the inspiration for urban planning principles that have influenced the planning of SA Repat. The concept features wide avenues and parks, centralised civic functions, good sightlines to buildings, and considered spacing between utility and amenity.

A key desire for community – espoused within the Garden City movement – is achieved through the site’s amenities. These include a general store, hairdresser and ample outdoor area. Residents and staff can visit the publicly-accessible café, children’s play area and studio, all of which are housed alongside ancillary administration and the ‘HammondCare At Home’ team in an adaptive reuse of the heritage-listed Building B, facing Daws Road.

Like all of HammondCare’s homes, residents will live in households with private bedrooms and single ensuites. The latest of HammondCare’s small household model includes a myriad of well-considered dementia design features that have been tested and informed by research and experience. Domestic kitchens form the heart of the home, where meals are prepared fresh. Generous living areas are filled with good contrast in the selection of upholstery and window coverings, with each cottage having its own unique theme. Private backyards with level outdoor access hold a multitude of activities to engage both body and mind, and are designed so that no decision is a wrong one.

The cottages also range in the number of occupants. This variety accommodates for varying levels of severity of symptoms and behaviours of the 70 residents. As dementia continues to progress, the way this looks in a person changes. The cottages are specifically designed to cater for these behavioural changes – greater spaces, differing corridor widths, varying travel distances to best suit both the active and the non-ambulant. This is most evident within the two nine-bed cottages on-site, which serve as South Australia’s first Specialist Dementia Care Units.

Characteristics like these feature strongly in the Royal Commission findings that outline the benefits of smaller, lower density living arrangements for quality aged care, especially for those living with dementia. HammondCare has been doing this for more than two decades. Clinical and institutional practises that are associated with providing care do not intrude on the domestic atmosphere – so that one is able to find peace of mind and peacefully call it home.

“In the shadow of Oakden, this new Dementia Care Facility has been designed to provide the absolute best care for South Australians living with dementia … We know that dementia is on the rise in South Australia and this new service demonstrates our commitment to implementing the recommendations of the Oakden Report and ensuring the highest quality healthcare for older people with complex care needs.” 

– SA Minister for Health and Wellbeing Stephen Wade

The first project in delivering a residential care project with HammondCare is situated in Horsley, a suburb of Wollongong. The existing site contained six dementia cottages and was to be expanded to include two new cottages on a vacant corner, completing the masterplan.

Reviewing the innovations in dementia design since the first stage ten years prior led to considered planning options. Good wayfinding to each front door informed the final design, with ample back yard space also allowing the cottages to serve as Specialist Dementia Care Units should the need arise.

In a response to site needs, the redevelopment also included a hair salon, café and reception – each considering good dementia design principles – contrast in furniture and upholstery selections, bespoke joinery design for improved wayfinding, and acoustic treatment to mitigate excessive stimuli.

“Residents moving into Stage 2 benefit from the small, domestic care model shown by research to be the most effective way to deliver dementia care – with fewer hospitalisations and better quality of life.”

– Angela Raguz, HammondCare’s General Manager Residential Care

Continuing the growth of the village, Stage 3A at Miranda included 33 independent living units for seniors within a six-storey building, including additional amenity for the community to thrive.

New facilities include a lounge lobby with adjoining garden terraces, a theatre, a sky lounge bar and terrace, an activities room, and basement carparking.

A landscaped courtyard embraces the entry, opening toward the existing access roads and links to community facilities already provided on site.

This stage was the final seniors living facility within the masterplan, in an integrated development offering a range of residential aged care and facilities for socialising and community gathering.

2019 National Master Builders Association award for ‘Lifestyle Housing for Seniors Retirement Villages’.

The project began by re-casting an existing master plan to deliver a greater sense of community across the development on a site bisected by power lines and surrounded by industrial use. Starting with 90 residents; now over 350 residents across seniors living, respite and residential care call Miranda their home.

The staging strategy prioritised maximising efficiency and minimising disruption to on-site activities, and the progressively growing number of residents. Smaller hubs were formulated to create closer communities in semi-public spaces, each served through a central vehicular spine.

In this first seniors living stage, 90 apartments were configured around a village green to form a civic presence for the community. The apartment designs also incorporated HammondCare’s dementia design principles. This approach enables residents to maintain independence for longer, to the point of gradual transition into dementia-specific cottages co-located onsite.

The village incorporates important design principles that links and welcomes the broader community via a well activated community centre. At the centre of the village is a well designed ‘village green’ which is part of the social hub for residents, actively used and appreciated by the HammondGrove community.

Michael Cooney, General Manager Property & Capital Works