Nothing institutional about Aged Care Interior Design at Pozieres House at Umina

We were thrilled to see video footage of the first residents moving into their new home, aptly named Pozieres House in honour of the 'Battle of Pozieres', with the transfer of all residents strategically managed in a COVID-19 safe manner over several weeks. We were proud to be part of a predominantly local team of professionals engaged by Peninsula Village Living (PVL) to design and build their new, thirty million dollar state-of-the-art, 114-bed aging in place development.

We provided the interior fitout and furnishing design services, working closely with the architect for the project, Claudia Rosznercki (RZK Group). Other Central Coast businesses involved in bringing the PVL vision to life include PluimJoinery for the case good joinery, Polytec (a national company with headquarters on the Central Coast) for the joinery panels, Inspired Floor Coverings for the commercial grade vinyl flooring with a domestic look and feel, and Enlightened Design Studio for the decorative light fittings. Construction of the building and interior fitout was completed by Grindley Construction and Grindley Interiors based in Pymble, who did an incredible job of translating the architectural concepts into the finished result.

Pozieres House consists of nine communities (including three Memory Support Unit communities) across three levels with just twelve to fourteen residents living in each, providing an intimate household setting. There are 111 one-bedroom rooms in the development, all with private ensuite, and three executive suites on the top level. The executive suites are essentially one-bedroom apartments with sitting area, lounge, walk-in robe, kitchenette and a large, luxuriously appointed ensuite.

Our Scope of works

Our interior fitout and furnishing design scope of works on this project involved a number of specialised services to ensure the project reflected the unique coastal character of the Peninsula, including:

• Developing six custom fabrics for furniture and soft furnishings.
• Custom modifying four of the main chair styles specified.
• Custom designing the wall coverings for the executive suites.
• Artwork selection - part of our resident engagement process involved curating a slide show of art collections, shortlisted for the home, allowing residents to be part of the final selection process.We used local images shot by local photographers for artwork, the subject reflectingour client's desire to achieve a 'luxury coastal interior'.
• Furniture vetting, procurement and resident testing to ensure all furniture items were fit for purpose. For example, we shortlisted four furniture suppliers and had them provide our curated furniture pieces for a resident trial, allowing those residents involved in the trial to select their preferred style.
• Joinery design - We designed the layout and finishes for the resident kitchen and nurse's kiosk, as shown below, bedroom wardrobes and lounge room entertainment units, also providing all documentation for construction and shop drawing sign-off.
• Elevation details - an extension of finishes selections we provided detail construction drawings for interior elevations of corridors, ensuites, specialist consultant rooms, salon, reception, lift lobbies, function rooms and feature elements such as room dividers.

A few of our project highlights

The cladding we designed for the entrance foyer walls is a whitewashed weatherboard, reminiscent of the 1950s and 60s, an era when most residents would have established their family homes on the Peninsula. The foyer therefore creates an instant warm and familiar ambience on arrival, a lovely first impression to welcome residents to their new home.

The image below shows a sitting room at the end of the residential corridor. The way Claudia, the architect, opened out the corridor allows for saturation of light to fill the generous space, creating a welcoming, non-institutional destination for a family gathering to be enjoyed in comfort and relative privacy. Modest nooks are also provided for smaller gatherings or time spent in peaceful solitude away from the main lounge room.

The sandy hues and textural finish on the carpet evoke sisal. The detail on the floor coverings evokes memories of the domestic exterior environment, while the seamless tonal value between each material assists those living with vision impairment. For example, vinyl represents veranda decking and carpet tiles evoke the look and feel of a sandstone pathway in one area anda pebblecrete driveway in another.

Walls are finished in fresh whites and sandy hues, with wayfinding accents in deep navy and emerald greens to highlight the 1950s style crisp white formed bedroom doors.

Furniture continued the same theme throughout the home with dementia design principles tightly adhered to within the three Memory Support Unit(MSU) communities. The six remaining communities had the same undercurrent of effective design principles applied, but with a little more personality added through the introduction of greater pattern scales.

The furniture we specified, modified and designed upholstery for has all the ergonomic comforts of seating designed for the elderly, while resembling casual outdoor furniture of the 50s and 60s, again creating that sense of familiarity and comfort.

The image below showcases the design and finish of the executive suite ensuites. I call this exquisite finish, 'the oyster and her pearl'.  In my sixteen years of designing aged care homes, I have never seen a finer example of a bathroom. The quality and luxury you associate with a pearl when you touch one in the flesh is represented eloquently in those wall tiles.

There is definitely nothing institutional about the ensuites at Pozieres House or any other part of this wonderful development for that matter. I applaud PVL for their extraordinary vision to deliver such a unique and special aging in place development for the Peninsula community.