Amoonguna Community Clinic

The new clinic at Amoonguna community south-east of Alice Springs is designed to provide health services to the Amoonguna Community and the many visiting families from remote communities that have ties to Amoonguna. The clinic is located on the main road into the community in a central location and on the route to the shop and council office so that it is easily accessed by all residents.

The consultation and design team included a health consultant whom together with the community council and health clinic staff developed a Service Plan and Operational Policy in order to determine the current and future operational and infrastructure needs of the Health Service. The Service Plan formed the basis for the development of the detailed architectural brief.

The design takes into consideration cultural understandings of space and privacy in order to create a clinic that is able to be accessed by all members of the community. For example, the clinic design incorporates gendered consulting spaces. Further, both gendered spaces have a corridor access that establish an internal circulation where controlled use of direct sunlight and thermal mass walls have been used to stabilise internal temperatures, and provide natural daylight to internal spaces.