DDI Submission: The Health & Well-being Centre

The Health & Well-being Centre

The design for this building has evolved and responded to three main themes. These are ‘The Bender’, the building’s programmatic requirements, and the integration and cooperation of the building’s services, structure, and orientation.

The ‘Bender’ grounds itself at this building, and it is the Bender that has been the originating and orientating point for this design. Through ramps and delicate overpasses this building reinforces the importance of the Bender by helping the Bender to meet the ground and by using it to create dynamic public spaces that provide Geelong’s residents and the waterfront visitors with a variety of options for accessing, using, and appreciating both the waterfront and the DDI campus.

The program of the Well-being Centre has been structured around the expected number of students that will be enrolled in the DDI. Of these 5000 students it is expected that 1000 will use some part of this facility on a regular basis, and that at any one time there will be a likely maximum of around 40 percent (400 people) using this facility.

This program defined the requirements of the swimming pool, basketball court, strength and cardio areas, and the building’s amenities. The aesthetic and function of the architecture that houses this program has been largely derived from the structure and the services.

Earth ramps, roof gardens, and a distinct roof line supported by an interesting and exposed structure have been the main architectural solutions and focuses. This has been combined with the integration of low and natural energy building services systems that work together with the structure and the program. These combine to pre-condition the fresh-air intake, naturally ventilate the entire complex, control the building’s heat gains with a naturally driven, heat-exhausted (north aspect) double-façade system, and with diffused top-lighting of the main interior spaces.

These three themes discussed above are the entire scheme and they are each distinguished prominently in the design solution presented for the DDI Submission. Their inclusion into the project has been done with success however the forms and the elements of this building complex require a better synthesis. The present architectural proposition must now evolve the aspects of the Center’s three themes into one simple and easily understood architectural statement.

Perhaps it must begin this synthesizing process with a new emphasis that shifts from the current emphasis of structure over building form. To refine this architecture a new approach could begin by identifying an appropriate form, or ‘mass’ to house the required program and its systems on this prominent site. This will require a review of this building’s urban design role and a response that reflects this reassessed urban position through a new orientation and a new formal building mass. A further step would be to (rationalize this design) and develop a structure that makes this form possible.