Queensland Children's Hospital
“The Queensland Children’s Hospital was an opportunity to contest prevailing paradigms; to radically rethink how a building may both improve on the traditional care model and also contribute to the city as a civic marker.”
Corbett Lyon, Director and co-founder of Lyons
We see every project as an opportunity to interrogate design and leave antiquated conventions behind. This was certainly the case for the Queensland Children’s Hospital (QCH), a project that became the blueprint for many hospital designs across Australia. With an abundance of evidence-based design, too often are hospital facilities templated, ignoring the opportunity to innovate and tailor buildings to our communities. Working with Queensland Health, a client keen to embrace innovation, we challenged the conventions of hospital design in search of a truly functional and meaningful outcome. As part of the hospitals precinct-scale campus masterplanning, the project strengthens South Bank’s civic network while enabling efficient flows across care, research and teaching.
Our research methodologies included studying hospitals from the 1980s through to the present day to understand the genealogy and typography of contemporary hospitals. From this process came the opportunity to contest outdated ideas and rethink the care model. The result is a building that on completion in 2014 was Australia’s largest and most advanced salutogenically-designed children’s hospital, housing leading edge diagnostic and treatment facilities and spaces for research and teaching. This evidence-based approach informed contemporary paediatric planning—single rooms, family zones and adaptable clinical platforms. Not simply a success for its facilities, the building is a welcoming, bright, and supportive environment for health workers and the young patients and families of Queensland. Daylight, views, art and gardens act as therapeutic elements consistent with our salutogenic design approach.
Hospitals & Healthcare
Corbett Lyon
Rob Tursi
Conrad Gargett (Joint Venture Architects)
Queensland Health
501 Stanley St, Brisbane
Located on the traditional lands of the Yuggera people
95,000 square metres
Complete, 2014
“The contemporary design we envisaged several years ago has been delivered and will allow us to achieve our goal of delivering patient and family-focused healthcare.”
Dr Peter Steer, formerly Children’s Health Queensland chief executive, as quoted in Architecture & Design article.
“The Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital transforms a large and complex piece of healthcare infrastructure into a series of framed moments which both surprise and delight. The hospital establishes a new benchmark in paediatric healthcare for the state.”
2015 Queensland Architecture Awards Jury comments
The Queensland Children’s Hospital is a significant urban addition to Brisbane’s South Bank precinct. Both in its form and function, the building marks a contribution to the life and experience of the community. Our design for QLC has enabled a new level of patient and family-centred care, unprecedented in Queensland. At South Bank the hospital frames generous public spaces and shortens patient journeys between arrival, clinics and wards.
The QCH replaced two existing children’s hospital facilities and is designed to deliver a wide range of health services as well as research and teaching spaces. This included a full range of outpatient services, leading edge diagnostic and treatment facilities and inpatient wards for children and their families and carers. Co-locating services improves continuity of care and supports interprofessional collaboration.
To design a highly operational building that contributes to the urban environment, we undertook a rigorous research process. We studied hospitals from the 1980s through to the present day, finding them to be largely functionally driven and medico-centric in their planning. Through this research into the genealogy and typography of contemporary hospitals, we saw an opportunity to contest these ideas, rethinking the care model and how it might benefit the Brisbane community. The resulting service models prioritise efficient operation and long-term flexibility.
Contesting these ideas never compromised functionality, rather, we sought to create an operational layout inextricably intertwined with inherent symbolism. While a living tree informed the design, the twelve level 95,000m2 building is highly functional, incorporating some of the world’s most advanced diagnostic, interventional and treatment facilities. Standardised modules and clear adjacencies support clinical workflow across departments. Yet with plant-inspired cladding, wildlife-themed artworks and a network of spaces based on trunks and branches the Queensland Children’s Hospital breathed as it grew. Not only does this symbolism keep children at the forefront of our design, it also provides an operational layout. The branching logic also creates legible places to pause, meet and recover between appointments.
Working with key stakeholders, we moved away from conventional hospital models of a podium and tower, and designed two generous atriums, numerous double-height spaces, and a series of roof terraces. The two atriums stand like distinguished tree trunks,helping visitors and staff easily navigate the paediatric facility. These are connected by a network of double height spaces that extend beyond the façade to form balconies, acting as the branches of the building. These vertical ‘trunks’ act as orientation devices, strengthening intuitive wayfinding from entry to wards. Each branch is oriented toward a key landmark in the city – the high rise buildings of central Brisbane, the distant mountains and the Brisbane River. Balconies and terraces provide outdoor respite and views as part of everyday care.
A patient’s wellbeing primarily depends on having access to the right facilities and efficient care, and these factors rely on innovative design. We designed the majority of rooms to accomodate single beds with ensuite and built in couches that convert to a bed for a parent/carer to comfortably stay overnight with their child. Parent lounges are located on every ward, and a family resource centre provides a space to access health information. Family-centred rooms improve privacy and reduce transfers, aligning with contemporary paediatric models of care. Our design heavily reduced spaces for waiting areas, a conscious design decision that fundamentally changed service models for the hospital. Our emphasis on service planning and patient flow in QCH became a blueprint for health services across Queensland. We worked closely with healthcare professionals to balance our innovative solutions with their invaluable opinions, resulting in improved service models and more advanced care for patients. Optimised patient flow replaces passive waiting with active care zones and distributed check-in.
“The Queensland Children’s Hospital was an opportunity to contest prevailing paradigms; to radically rethink how a building may both improve on the traditional care model and also contribute to the city as a civic marker and as a touchstone for the Brisbane community.” —Corbett Lyon, Director and co-founder of Lyons
We set out to design a welcoming, bright and supportive environment for patients, families and health workers. To achieve this, our design is underpinned by salutogenic principles to facilitate health and wellbeing for both patients and health workers. These principles include clear way finding, connections to the outside, an abundance of natural light, views of nature, and access to green spaces.
The tree structure of the building enables way-finding, and offers access to natural light, fresh air and landscaping – elements that expedite healing and improve feelings of wellbeing. The building’s corridor structure provides significant views of the city, helping to normalise the space from both the outside in and the inside out. This blurring of spaces also helps to address the grand size of the building, making it less intimidating. Regular views and micro-break spaces also support staff wellbeing in busy paediatric settings.
Designing an environment with an abundance of green space was a key element in supporting wellness in QCH. Rooftop gardens, sloping green walls and enclosed courtyard gardens can be found throughout. We designed patios on the upper levels to be used by patients, families, and staff for relaxation and rehabilitation. Major windows allow people to see in and out of the building, helping with the context of time and place as well as building community connections. Access to terraces and gardens encourages rehabilitation in a non-institutional setting.
Colour, natural materials and art are similiarily used to promote wellbeing and engage and distract young patients. Sculptures of brightly coloured parrots inhabit the space in the central atrium and images of butterflies, beetles and insects printed on timber panels line the building’s public spaces. Integrated art and graphics are calibrated for different age groups to reduce anxiety and aid navigation.
To create a supportive environment for patients, families and staff we designed the Queensland Children’s Hospital to integrate with the surrounding landscape. Blurring the lines between environments sought to make a trip to the hospital a little less intimidating for children. Our design also acknowledges the building’s responsibility to the broader community to work with and contribute to the surroundings.
The building sits alongside the Southbank Parklands, a generous urban park which serves as a gathering place for people from across Brisbane. The plaza reactivates this important ‘end point’ to the Southbank precinct and provides a new level of urban amenity for hospital and public users. It includes cafes and retail activities, strengthens landscape and visual connections to Southbank and accommodates major works of urban art integrated with the plaza design. These connections make the hospital a porous, welcoming neighbour rather than a closed campus.
Bougainvilleas in the adjacent parklands informed the colour palette used throughout the building creating a bright, familiar space, especially for children. We also drew upon muted pastel tones found in the outback and vibrant colours of the State’s exotic birds, rainforest butterflies and flora throughout. These colours were distilled, re-constructed into a ‘Queensland colour wheel’ and then used as a design tool to inform the use of colour in different zones of the building. This colour strategy supports legible zoning and complements environmental wayfinding. Key accents of nature, wildlife and abundant green spaces also link the building to the familiar landscape of Queensland.
Corbett Lyon, Directors, Co-Founders, Practice Executive
View Corbett's ProfileRobert Tursi, Senior Principals, Practice Executive
View Robert's Profile
Designed by Lyons in collaboration with Haworth Tompkins and Silver Thomas Hanley, the boundary-breaking ECU City campus was unveiled in 2021 and early works are now underway. Recently, Sean Henriques, Program Director at ECU spoke with Architecture AU on his experience working with Lyons.
In January 2025, Lyons’ ‘Reflect’ Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) was formally endorsed by Reconciliation Australia, marking a significant milestone in our commitment to reconciliation and the indigenisation of Australia’s built environment.
As 2021 comes to a close, Corbett Lyon addressed the studio last week and reflected on the year that was.
Lyons Graduate, Ashlee Murphy, wins the AIA VIC Graduate Prize
The Emerging Architects and Graduate Network have invited architects to consider a message they would share with their younger selves, and this week they’ve shared words from Lyons Director, Carey Lyon.
