Stafford Vet Hospital / Vokes and Peters

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Text description provided by the architects. The Stafford Vet Hospital is a world-class specialist veterinary facility operated by Queensland Veterinary Specialists and Pet ER, offering both elective and emergency patient care. As well as promoting animal welfare, the wellness of clients and staff is equally considered in the design of the hospital. Good clinical work is delivered when people feel healthy, professional and happy. This is the principal role of architecture in this setting.

With both animals and humans in mind, the first room encountered is a roofless entry garden, offering the presence of nature – the ground, the sky, vegetation and emptiness. The garden room is a place of pause and calm, providing an opportunity for a dog to pee and its owner to gather themselves prior to entering the hospital.

Understanding one’s relative position and orientation in a building can have a bearing on feelings of comfort and well-being. The garden, albeit small, provides a key way-finding element at the entry to the building. All publicly-accessible spaces are arranged around this light-filled outdoor room. This is of particular consideration for veterinary practices as their functions are best accommodated by ‘deep plans’ (floor plans that are multiple-rooms wide in any direction).

As a humane response to its deep plan, the animal hospital is penetrated by a network of circulation corridors for human and animal movement, allowing natural light and ventilation to slice through the plan. Numerous large skylights also deliver daylight into key intersections of these cuts. These porous moments in the plan invite the presence of natural phenomena and register time and the nuance of outside light conditions throughout the day. Circulation paths are widened to facilitate occupancy and encourage social interaction between professionals and the cross-pollination of ideas and knowledge across disciplines.

In the absence of overt retail signage, the building form and material further conceals the inner function of the building. The hospital envelope is curiously opaque in a conscious attempt to preserve the privacy and dignity of clients and patients, and to enable a range of medical and surgical activities to occur discreetly.

The identity of the hospital reflects its light-industry land zoning and 24/7 operation, expressed through an austere, reductive and formal language of proprietary corrugated cladding. The integration of both metal and fibreglass sheeting allows the building fabric to be reactive to natural and artificial light, and pleating in the wall profile is both elegant and practical, functioning as a mechanical head flashing to all openings. These subtle refinements in the manner and detailing of the building façade reflect the values, precision and care of this leading group of veterinary practitioners.