Joan Kirner Women's and Children's Hospital

Over 35,000 square meters of Tarkett homogeneous vinyl flooring has greatly contributed to the rigid hygiene standards and bold, colorful interior of the new Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital.

Recently built in the north-western Melbourne suburb of St Albans, Victoria, the Joan Kirner Women’s and Children’s Hospital (JKWCH) is a healthcare facility providing a multitude of specialist services including birthing suites, operating theatres, special-care nursery, maternity wards and a paediatric ward.

The floor and walls of the hospital has been effectively designed and employed to reduce stress and anxiety amongst all occupants, and result in an easy to clean and maintain surface. Such design is described as ‘salutogenic’ – in Latin salus (health) and Greek (genesis) – and focuses on creating an environment that promotes wellbeing and reduces negativity.

JKWCH architect, Lyons, used a number of design devices to achieve its salutogenic goals, including abundant natural lighting and impactful colors. The leading interior influence in this pursuit is the vivid color scheme and pattern of the flooring, comprised predominantly of Tarkett Vinyl Primo Premium.

Lyons site architect, Anderson Matthews, said the practice specializes in healthcare – mainly designing such sector projects – and liaised with Tarkett after consulting with Western Health about its cleaning and maintenance requirements. “We worked with Tarkett to provide the most suitable flooring from a practical point-of-view and also to help achieve the salutogenic approach to the build by using colors to help decrease anxiety and stress for patients, their families and friends, and of course the staff,” said Mr Matthews.

“Tarkett provided us with samples in different colors from different ranges. We concluded that we liked the speckle pattern in the Tarkett Vinyl Primo Premium range, from which we chose a grey color for the vast majority of the flooring. Primo Premium’s certified properties made it really easy to navigate the specification process and get things such as fire certificates through the building surveyor, which was really helpful.” Tarkett specifications manager, Louisa Keleher, confirmed Primo Premium’s wide color palette and suitability to healthcare environments appealed to Lyons architects: “There are 38 colors in the range so they had a lot to choose from,” said Ms Keleher.

Because of JKWCH ‘s high foot-traffic and infection control requirements, the floor is cleaned daily. “It’s a high traffic area and we have not just the patients to transport, we have food delivery, stores coming-in, external storage – all on a daily basis. And it’s been more frequent since COVID-19,” he said “We find the Tarkett flooring easy to clean, with the machine and also with mops. We’ve been doing that every day since the building opened over a year ago, and we haven’t seen any issues such as marks developing.”