MondoClad at Newcastle’s Pioneering Residential Eating Disorders Centre

In fact, the $13-million project developed by the NSW Government is the first facility of this kind in NSW, heralding a shift from conventional healthcare design to profoundly considered architecture of nurture, connection and emotional reassurance.

Designed to accommodate stays of up to three months and provide specialised therapy as well as daily living skill development, the welcoming centre bridges the home-like comfort and security of the indoor realm with the calming generosity of Charlestown’s lush vegetation, delivering a deeply restorative therapeutic experience for people living with eating disorders.

“The building form and arrangement is a thoughtful response to the client’s detailed emotional design brief and the site’s unique characteristics, optimising connections to the outdoors and landscape, which play a crucial role in recovery,” explains Holly Nyquist, Lead Architect on the project and Director of EJE Architecture, who designed the centre in collaboration with residential architect Jodie Dixon.

This ethos yields a gentle environment that rejects the institutional convention of medical buildings, deliberately prioritising the occupants’ comfort, wellbeing and healing journey through every design and material choice. As a result, the centre’s architecture and its quiet relationship with the surrounding bushland become a natural extension of the therapeutic process.

The refined palette of the internal spaces – defined by calming hues, warm, tactile materiality and generous integration of glazing – spills outside to meet the surrounding vegetation with intentional harmony. Bridging both realms through its organic expression, HVG Façades’ MondoClad panels, selected for the soffit lining, form an essential part of this indoor-outdoor dialogue.

“The reason we’ve used this product here is that we wanted to maintain a seamless connection between the form that’s been utilised throughout the building and extend that to the external spaces of the building,” Holly points to the natural plywood used internally. “However, using timber externally was a no-go for maintenance reasons.”

MondoClad panels’ low-maintenance solid aluminium construction and pre-finished timber-like appearance proved to be the perfect combination. The panels offer the durability required for these exterior applications, while the natural wood-grain Blonde Pine finish – “carefully selected to match the tonal palette of the surrounding bushland,” Thomas Brenner, National Product Manager for MondoClad at HVG Façades, explains – helps achieve a cohesive integration of built form and landscape. “It provides the finish we’re after,” Holly enthuses. “We couldn’t be happier.”

While this timber-like shade imbues the soffits with a warm, tactile quality, the impeccable alignment of the panels – meticulously installed by Darrall Gibson as part of the Graph Building-led construction process – enhances the structure’s gentle geometry. Carefully integrated alongside other façade elements in pronounced rectangular gestures, the custom-fabricated panels maintain the clean lines the architects envisioned and highlight the structure’s gentle curvature.

However, beyond the aesthetic alignment with the project intent, MondoClad’s holistic profile was also instrumental in meeting the project’s rigorous health, safety and environmental targets. “EJE Architecture and NSW Health established strong sustainability objectives for the project, focused on both environmental responsibility and human-centred health outcomes,” Thomas explains.

He adds that it was paramount to meet National Construction Code (NCC) requirements for non-combustibility and occupant safety, and ensure that all materials carried recognised environmental certifications and documents, including Environmental Product Declarations (EPDs). “In addition, the project team sought to support energy efficiency and operational sustainability by selecting durable, low-maintenance materials with long lifespans and minimal environmental impact.”