Nepean Mental Health Centre
healing°
The Nepean Mental Health Centre is a new facility at the Nepean Hospital campus in Penrith, NSW. The project was commissioned by Health Infrastructure NSW, with architecture by Woods Bagot. The Nepean Mental Health Centre was opened in 2014.
Size: 7,300m2
Budget: $43,300,000
Scope: Masterplan, Concept Design, Detail Documentation, Construction
1. Main entrance and Streetscape interface (above left)
2. Streetscape Landscape (below left)
3. The landscape design resolves complex levels to the building entry and provides public amenity (right)
The new landscape integrates NMHC with the existing hospital campus
Streetscape
Healing Garden
Changing the nature of healing for mental health by design
- Woods Bagot
Integrated Streetscape Landscape
The building entry provides public amenity
Entry Concept Sketch Plan
Healing Garden Concept Perspective
Courtyard Concept Sketch Plan
‘Formulated as a stepped courtyard typology, the principle design concept sought to utilise the existing slope to create internalised green spaces’
- World Architecture News
Entry Landscape Concept Render
Entry Landscape Concept Elevation
Design Statement
A new insertion into the existing campus at Nepean hospital in Penrith, NSW; the Nepean Mental Health Centre is designed to respond to the increase in demand for mental health services as a result of the growing and ageing population.
The NMHC includes 64-mental health beds servicing high dependency, acute and Specialist Mental Health Services for Older Persons. The unit will include a dedicated inpatient ward and new facilities for the outpatient day program.
The hard steel and glazed exterior relates to the adjacent hospital buildings, and is contrasted with the non-institutional feel of the interiors and internal courtyards, where the focus is on healing by design and creating a sense of humanity and ownership.
With generous solar access, these therapeutic internal courtyards create visual connectivity and engage users with a tapestry of landscaping that changes with the passage of time, allowing regeneration to become visibly tangible.
The design of the unit provides a restorative health care unit, integrated into the local community and linked to the adjoining health precinct.
- Woods Bagot
