Karratha Health Campus From Baron Sandpit To Restorative Oasis

Resourceful planting and irrigation are helping this new civic landscape thrive in the harsh climate of Australia’s Pilbara region.

- Hassell

The A$207m Karratha Health Campus – Western Australia’s largest ever regional health infrastructure investment – is transforming health services for people living and working in the country’s remote north-west. Hassell designed the public health facility, including the campus’ expansive landscape that enhances the hospital environment, provides respite for patients and their families and extends Karratha’s green links through to the city centre.

The landscape was designed alongside hospital staff, the City of Karratha, and the traditional ‘Ngarluma’ landowners to create a civic place where the whole community feels comfortable and protected, says Natalie Busch, Principal at Hassell.

But designing a sustainable landscape for Karratha was particularly challenging, says Busch; as the town experiences, all extremes in weather and conditions. From high temperatures, humidity and at times torrential rains, to bonedry soil, and even cyclones.

“With these impacts in mind, we designed a hospital campus that’s ‘bulletproof’ and self-sufficient in terms of essential services and maintenance. A landscape that can not only survive fluctuating conditions but – through its strategic design – actually helps protect this vital community asset during extreme weather events.”

“One year since completion, and having endured category five Cyclone Veronica, the landscape continues to thrive,” Busch said. Innovating to sustain plant life in a water-scarce environment. In the semi-arid Pilbara, any civic landscape lacking sufficient planting and shade is destined to fail, but water for irrigation isn’t readily available. Karratha’s groundwater is brackish, the rainfall’s unreliable – essentially the site pre-development was a baron sandpit.