COMMUNITY group Women’s Health and Family Services has moved into a new, unique home in Northbridge, which is steeped in heritage value.
COMMUNITY group Women’s Health and Family Services has moved into a new, unique home in Northbridge, which is steeped in heritage value.
The innovative complex on Newcastle Street, which houses WHFS, reflects the efforts of many stakeholders to create a welcoming space on a limited budget for mainly disadvantaged women.
The property, which cost $3.1 million to design and construct, incorporates three heritage buildings – a warehouse and two Queen Anne cottages. It had to adhere to strict heritage guidelines and the overall vision of the East Perth Redevelopment Authority for the site, which sits above the Northbridge tunnel.
For WHFS chief executive Ann Deanus, the new building represents the culmination of about 10 years of hard work and negotiation, including six for the design and build component.
WHFS is a not-for-profit organisation and has been providing health care to women in WA for more than 30 years. It now manages many community and outreach projects and provides services to more than 50,000 families from many nationalities in Perth, rural and remote areas.
WHFS moved into its new premises about three weeks ago from a number of locations in Aberdeen Street.
“It is just a fantastic outcome from a very difficult and complex site,” Ms Deanus said. “The architects CODA have done a great job to work within the strict heritage requirements and budget to come up with a building with such perfect flow.”
She said the building enabled WHFS to retain a professional look as well as be welcoming to a broad range of clients, including children.
The project is also a proud achievement for award-winning Beaconsfield-based architects, CODA, headed by Emma Williamson and Kieran Wong.
“It was a complex brief that had to take in cultural sensitivities of the users of the building,” Mr Wong said. “Our design idea came out of the separate structures; a circulation idea which links the buildings together.”
Mr Wong said CODA consulted extensively with the users of the facility, which included women suffering domestic violence, indigenous women and refugees. The building had to reflect this, providing safe access and safe exit points, as well as care and advice for children.
“With limited English being an issue, we wanted to make the buildings welcoming, colourful and easy to navigate. We produced a colourful ramp which connects all the buildings,” he said.
The designers worked hard to make clever and efficient use of the limited workspaces by encouraging space-sharing among service providers, which include a range of professionals.
CODA is especially happy with the building’s achievement of a four-star green rating, normally only awarded to bigger, commercial buildings on larger budgets.
The project was funded by Lotterywest, the federal government and EPRA, which owned the land. The land was vested by EPRA to the City of Perth, which leases it to WHFS for a peppercorn rent.
EPRA undertook to redevelop about 27 hectares of land in 2000 that had been under-utilised ahead of the sinking of the Graham Farmer Freeway.
The emphasis was on maintaining the area’s heritage streets, sites and cultural values but also making land available for commercial and residential redevelopment.
Ms Deanus said every aspect of the services WHFS provided had been considered in the project, something that flowed from a very close working relationship with the architects.
CODA has also designed a nearby multi-storey, mixed-use project for Foundation Housing, which is under construction.
Minister for Women’s Interests Robyn McSweeney officially opened the WHFS building this week.
