Austin Hospital Rooftop Garden

We were asked back to Austin Health to refurbish the Spinal Ward patient rooftop garden, this time with custom-designed planter boxes and matching privacy screens — stage one of a much bigger revamp for the space.

The Brief

Austin Health came to us wanting to give a tired rooftop area a proper facelift and turn it into somewhere patients in the Spinal Ward could genuinely escape to. Patients in this ward are often going through long, difficult recoveries, and the hospital places real weight on giving them somewhere outside the ward to reset — mentally as much as physically. The brief was to wrap the space in greenery and add taller privacy screening so it felt less exposed to the surrounding wards.

Having worked with Austin Health before, they trusted us to put forward design and material options rather than working to a fixed spec. But the practical constraints were significant: as a public hospital, budget mattered on every item; all products had to be delivered to the rooftop via the service elevator, with no crane access at all; and because the space sits inside a working ward with patients recovering close by, installation had to happen with minimal noise and disruption.

The Challenge

The elevator was the defining constraint of this project. Every planter and screen had to be sized to fit through it, which meant nothing could be built as one large unit — instead, everything was custom-sized to suit its exact position on the rooftop. That took a lot of upfront planning to make sure each piece would land perfectly once it reached its spot, with no room to adjust on site. We modelled the entire rooftop in CAD accurately so we could guarantee all the items would fit perfectly.

Safety rules meant nothing on the rooftop could be movable by hand, so the planters were bolted together into one continuous run rather than left as freestanding units. And because loud tool use wasn't an option in a working spinal ward, we shifted as much of the assembly as possible offsite, which put extra pressure on getting every dimension and detail right before anything left our workshop.

Getting the products to the rooftop meant wheeling them through multiple wards to reach the service elevator, so we built custom mobile dollies to move everything quietly and smoothly through the hospital without disturbing patients or staff.

The privacy screens brought their own design puzzle: to get the height needed for real privacy, we had to attach brackets to the existing balustrade — but the client didn't want anything screwed or bolted through the existing cladding. We ended up developing an adjustable custom bracket that hooks over the balustrade and supports the full weight of the screen without any permanent fixings.

The Solution

We wanted a sleek, modern look that let the greenery do the talking, in a tone that sat comfortably against the surrounding buildings rather than competing with them. From there, we took our standard ALLO Perf Planter and reworked it into multiple custom sizes to suit each section of the rooftop, swapping the usual castors for adjustable footings and pairing every planter with a matching privacy screen sized to run its full length.

Materials were almost entirely powder-coated aluminium, with some stainless steel components added for extra strength. Aluminium won out because it simply won't rust, giving Austin Health a product built to handle harsh Australian rooftop conditions for years to come. Each piece was sanded, pre-treated (chromated), and powder-coated in Dulux Monument for the best possible adhesion and long-term protection.

For the planting itself, we worked with the team at Evergreen Infrastructure to get the drainage and lining right. On a sunny, exposed rooftop, soil drying out too fast was a real risk, and the last thing staff needed was another maintenance job added to their day — so getting this part right mattered as much as the design above ground.

Crafting the Custom Solution

In total, the project came together as 23 planter boxes with matching screens, spanning more than 50 lineal metres — all bolt-together modular units with laser-cut alignment fixtures to keep every custom-sized piece locking into place exactly as designed. Given how many unique components this project needed, that level of precision offsite was what made a smooth, near-silent install possible.

The Result

This is only stage one of a larger refurbishment, but patients and staff are already delighted with the transformation — and just as keen to see what comes next. What we're proudest of here isn't just the planters and screens themselves, but how the whole delivery and install came together despite the access restrictions and the sensitivity of working around a live ward. Our team pulled it off seamlessly, and just as importantly, the hospital staff and managers felt that every step of the process respected their patients.

This project builds on our first collaboration with Austin Health — read about that project, the Austin Hospital Staff Retreat here.

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