Tōtara Haumaru, North Shore Hospital
The largest development at North Shore Hospital in 50 years, Tōtara Haumaru is designed to support the physical and emotional wellbeing of patients and families, alongside tending to their clinical needs.
Project Details
| Client | Te Whatu Ora – Health New Zealand |
| Sector | Health |
| Location | Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland |
| Disciplines | Architecture, Health Planning, Interior Design, Landscape Architecture, Wayfinding Design, BIM Management |
| Status | Ongoing |
| Size | 19,000 sqm |
| Design Collaborators | Haumi |
A world-class healthcare facility that puts patient care at its heart
Te Whatu Ora - Health New Zealand is currently undertaking major capital works at its North Shore Hospital campus in order to accommodate projected population growth in Auckland’s northern region. The cornerstone of this programme is a new four-storey hospital building, Tōtara Haumaru, located adjacent to the existing Elective Surgery Centre, also designed by Jasmax, and linking to existing hospital facilities via a sky bridge.
The facility will provide an Operating Unit consisting of eight theatres and an Endoscopy Unit with four procedure rooms and five 30-bed inpatient wards totalling 150 beds. The project also anticipates a healing garden within an interior courtyard that will support wellbeing and offer a place of respite for patients, visitors and staff.
A safe haven for patients and their families
The building's name and cultural design narrative is derived from the landscape. For Māori, Tōtara is a highly valued taonga due to the remarkable strength and durability of its heartwood, and in te ao Māori, tōtara is synonymous with chiefly qualities and status.
The Tōtara Haumaru building is therefore symbolic of a chief or individual of great importance, who provides others with a safe haven. Wood from a tōtara tree, removed from the site to make way for the building, will be used for carvings incorporated in Tōtara Haumaru.
Jasmax has translated this concept of timber symbolising shelter and strength by incorporating it into non-clinical spaces such as the arrival area, main entrance, atrium, waiting areas and ward whanau rooms, to bring nature and warmth into the building.
