The winner of The Health and Wellbeing Space category changes lives in all the right ways and is a paragon of best practice design for the future.
October 4th, 2023
The Victorian Heart Hospital (VHH) by Conrad Gargett + Wardle has been announced as the winner of The Health and Wellbeing Space at the 2023 INDE.Awards. The project located in Clayton, Victoria, Australia sets a new agenda for design that ensures that the wellness of patients and staff is central to function and form.
Creating a project such as VHH requires experience and knowledge and so it is fitting that partner to The Health and Wellbeing Space is partnered by CPD Live, a vehicle that provides insight and education for architects and designers.

The 2023 INDE.Awards jury recognises the gravitas of such a project as VHH designed by Conrad Gargett + Wardle saying, “A complex project, the Victorian Heart Hospital showcases architecture that is simply best practice. Created for multiple end users, the design allows for flexibility, and offers excellent amenity through design that is thoughtful in every detail while also sensitive to its site and surrounds. This is an exemplary project in every aspect.”

As the first dedicated cardiac hospital in the southern hemisphere, VHH provides a plethora of world-class clinical cardiology services, research and education.
The impact of the design for the end users was integral to the project, in the understanding that this is a place that saves and changes lives. Ensuring a complete journey from admission to discharge, VHH was designed to better provide the healing requirements for users.

The project provides spaces that are clinical in function and non-clinical in their environment and there is a large central courtyard that becomes the ‘gravitational heart’ of VHH. Landscaping was integral to help support the clinical experience and flexibility is also key to the design, so that the building can adapt to future needs and evolve to support requirements of all users.
Congratulations to Conrad Gargett + Wardle for an outstanding design that impacts lives for the better and supports health and wellbeing on every level.
Missed the INDE.Awards gala or just want to relive the highlights? Simply follow this link and sit back and enjoy the only regional celebration of architecture and design excellence.
Photography: Peter Bennetts

INDESIGN is on instagram
Follow @indesignlive
A searchable and comprehensive guide for specifying leading products and their suppliers
Keep up to date with the latest and greatest from our industry BFF's!
In the second instalment of our performance seating three-parter, we turn to DKO’s Michael Drescher and Jacob Olsen to peek behind Sayl’s confident architectural form and explore the ideas of inclusivity, adaptability and freedom to move as hallmarks of what sitting your best actually means.
Blending versatile cooking with smart performance, Bosch AccentLine appliances bring a quieter sense of order and simplicity to the modern kitchen.
In the first instalment of our three-part series exploring what it means to sit your best, we pose the question to Gray Puksand’s Dale O’Brien, who discusses the importance of ease and majority rule when it comes to sitting and reveals why specifying a task chair is not unlike choosing a Volvo.
In the last instalment of our three-part performance seating series, Alex Bain from Architectus explains why sitting well shouldn’t feel like sitting at all and explores an unexpected success metric of the hybrid workplace: the grounding power of emotional support.
Celebrating three countries from our region and their respective Architecture Institutes at the 2026 INDE.Awards.
Designed by Billard Leece Partnership, the Wattle Building brings expanded clinical services together with a more legible, family-centred experience of hospital care.
Drawing at a young age gave Angelene Chan an appreciation for architecture and provided the impetus to propel her to the top of her profession.
Melbourne-based architect and object maker Adam Markowitz blurs the line between design and craft, bringing a deeply considered, material-led approach to his work. As both a practising architect and furniture designer, Markowitz explores how objects can respond to space, light and human use.
The internet never sleeps! Here's the stuff you might have missed
By creating an environment of vibrancy and activation, Level 8 of The Campus at Kokuyo has become a destination for collaboration.
After Milan Design Week’s ‘festival of consumption’, 3daysofdesign offers a much-needed reset, an opportunity to ‘make the world a better place’ and perhaps even a soft-launch of the future.