$1.5 billion new Footscray Hospital opens in Victoria

Footscray Hospital has opened, featuring a campus-style design with five interconnected buildings arranged around a central green space.

According to the Victorian government, the project is the state's largest health infrastructure investment to date. The $1.5 billion project was designed by Cox Architecture and Billard Leece Partnership (BLP) and delivered as a public-private partnership by the Plenary Health consortium, with Multiplex as builder, in partnership with the Victorian Government, Western Health and Victoria University. Tract was engaged to provide landscape design for the project.

Replacing the 1950s hospital on Gordon Street, the new facility at the corner of Geelong and Ballarat roads will accommodate more than 500 beds once fully operational, an increase of 200. These include beds for same-day and multi-day care, as well as critical care, sub-acute, drug and alcohol and mental health services.

Surgical theatres, MRI facilities and Victoria's first fully public pathology service are among the new hospital's key features.

A communique from the design team states the hospital was conceived as a campus rather than a single building. The central village green, designed by Tract, is intended to serve as the civic heart of the precinct and a piece of social infrastructure, offering staff, patients and the community space to rest or interact. The green also features a ceremonial space, a children's playground and pedestrian pathways, and is framed by active uses such as retail, food and beverage offerings.

The communique notes that the design adopts a human scale. Rounded and articulated building forms aim to soften the precinct's presence and improve accessibility, while a tiered facade transitions from a precast concrete expression at the lower levels - interspersed with glazing - to a fully glazed inpatient tower above, delineating public and private clinical zones.

Internally, colour is applied to aid wayfinding and differentiate zones, while a sculptural timber ceiling and other natural materials are intended to bring warmth into key public spaces.