459 | Benedict Chew

459 Lygon is a healthcare centre located along Lygon street in Melbourne, Australia.

The idea of a healthcare centre is a place where sick people go to recover back to their 100% capability. What if the centre could offer more? A place where it could improve you to 150%? This building challenges the notion of a typical health centre, transforming it into something more. By offering more for the people, it challenges and inspires them to be more, to become more than you were before. That is the beauty of this healthcare centre.

RTF Educational Awards 2020
First Award | Healthcare

Project Name: 459
Student Name: Benedict Chew
Location: Belgium

Located at the street corner of Lytton and Lygon in the district of Carlton, the building offers general practitioner medical doctors on the 1^st floor. The second floor is dedicated to the physiotherapy studios and sports clinics (with a gym). The 3^rd floor is designed to be a nutrition kitchen that will be used to conduct nutrition classes in the day while utilised by commercial kitchens/bakeries in the night/early morning. The 4^th floor features a swimming pool and an MMA gym. The 5^th floor above the pool is a night club that is constructed by recycled shipping containers.

The gym on the 2^nd floor features energy-generating cardio equipment which then stores the energy in battery cells in the basement service rooms. Therefore, encouraging people to be more active which helps power the building. The structural system relies on standard components such as UC150 columns and UB350 beams to keep the building cost-efficient. As Melbourne is a port city by the coast, it is economical and quick to acquire shipping containers. These shipping containers are already structural by nature and gives the façade an industrial feel to the texture.

Nutrition classes on the 3^rd floor are targeted at families because a large population of the Carlton district are single moms. This motivates and teaches the right nutritional needs of their children while encouraging to have more meals together. Studies have shown that a key reason for early childhood success is family meals.

At the back of the building, there is a water playground for the children. In the summer, it will be used due to the Australian heatwave. A water feature is proven to cool the building down in summer due to the evaporation.

Thus, 459 Lygon offers a whole range of facilities and activities, hoping to improve the lives of the people in Carlton by pushing the possibilities beyond the typical 100% that we already know. This is always the statement for architecture, creating and improving environments for people, and that will never change. Things can and will get better from here.