Designed by Woods Bagot, the new health centre and clinical teaching building at La Trobe University’s Bundoora campus supplements clinical placement capacity, while providing a vibrant teaching and learning environment for staff and students.

The facility is intended to relieve allied workforce shortages, providing students with clinical placements and hands-on experience to develop skills and confidence before entering the workforce.

The patient-centred, multidisciplinary clinic creates an inclusive, welcoming environment that strengthens community connection, supports wellbeing, and enhances the student experience.

Global Education Sector Leader Sarah Ball says La Trobe Health Clinic inverts the traditionally inward-facing clinical typology, creating a legible, daylit and connected environment to reduce stress and improve care outcomes.

“The contemporary facility’s inclusive design supports user dignity and wellbeing,” says Ball. “Utilising a thin floorplate and intuitive circulation, the building incorporates clear sightlines and naturally lit corridors to reinforce user orientation, improve comfort, and reduce stress.”

A unique feature of the Bundoora site is its vast network of meandering creeks, moats and waterways. Containing substantial native planting, these ecological green corridors provide unexpected moments of connection to the natural environment.

With biophilic design having tangible impact on healing and stress, the design team strived to create strong visual connection between building occupants and their surroundings. Waiting areas on each floor are positioned on the façade with north and east views to provide patients and visitors with natural outlook. These strategies directly address the common disconnection experienced from clinical buildings, replacing this with a clear sense of place, time of day and campus context.

Woods Bagot Associate Principal Clare Connan says the building has been informed by the ecological landscape, its rectilinear form moulded and broken down into an organic built expression.

“We’ve taken a rational, solid block and imagined it eroded and sculpted by the environment,” says Connan. “By incorporating cranked and folded geometries, we’ve created a building expression that looks endemic to its context and provides a robust, crafted expression in the landscape.”

La Trobe Health Clinic Building has been designed using all-electric building services, targeting a minimum 5-Star Green Star rating under the Green Building Council of Australia.

The facility has achieved a 20 percent reduction in upfront carbon emissions and operational energy use, as well as a 45 percent reduction in potable water use, and generates onsite renewable energy through solar PV array.

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