Gold standard for Gold Coast facility

That will not only provide modern, well-equipped patient, staff, and visitor facilities, but will also score highly on sustainability, urban design excellence, good access, innovation, and future-proofing.

This paper describes the processes used in the 750-bed, A$1.76 billion Gold Coast University Hospital (GCUH) planning and design phases to establish design principles and objectives, and to translate these principles into a design leading to a future-proofed, sustainable, referral hospital. A brief overview of the GCUH project is provided, followed by a discussion of the methodology employed to formulate design principles and objectives that were clearly understood and agreed by both the design team, and the hospital team. An overview of those objectives and principles is provided, including the definitions adopted for each of them by designers and end users. The strategies employed to transform the design principles and objectives into a design that fully reflected the client’s project objectives are examined, and the extent to which the design outcomes reflect the design objectives is reviewed. Project overview The GCUH will be located on a 19 hectare site, 4 km west of the Southport CBD (central business district), adjacent to the Gold Coast campus of Griffith University. The hospital site borders a proposed 130 hectare Health and Knowledge Precinct being masterplanned by the Department of Infrastructure and Planning, with Queensland Health, Griffith University, Transport Main Roads Department, and the Gold Coast City Council, as major stakeholders. The hospital will have 750 multi-day beds, plus 241 same-day beds and bed alternatives. The gross floor area is 170,000 m2, and the total project budget is A$1.76 billion. The project launch took place on 21 August 2007, and practical completion is scheduled for 8 December 2012. A 250-bed private hospital, with an expansion capability to 440 beds, is planned to be co-located on the site. Negotiations with Build Own and Operate (BOOT) proponents are well advanced to locate two multi-storey car parks on either end of the site, providing 3,000 parking spaces, with expansion capacity to 4,500 spaces. The car parks will have a gross floor area of 97 000 m2, with an estimated capital cost of approximately A$79 million.

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