The McCormack Building marks a significant milestone in the campus’s ongoing transformation, delivering contemporary learning environments grounded in Josephite values and the College’s long-term educational vision. As the first major project from the campus Master Plan prepared by Deicke Richards, it reflects a strategic commitment to future-focused education, community engagement, and architectural clarity.

Congratulations to everyone who worked on this project and thank you so much to the school, who were a fantastic client to work with!

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See the Institute’s citation below:

The jury commends Dominika for significant contributions to architectural practice, education, and advocacy, and for her contribution to sustainable, community focussed, project outcomes.

Dominika’s work in sustainability and associated advocacy is well established and of high quality. Her leadership in this field demonstrates that emerging architects can make a positive impact working within an established practice. Dominika’s efforts to affect change provide a guide for emerging architects on how they might represent their values in action.

Dominika’s passion for sustainability is further evidenced through her committee membership with the Australian Institute of Architects Queensland Climate and Sustainability Action Group, Architects Climate Action Network Australia, and Architects Declare.

Dominika’s leadership in the profession is evidenced by her curation of the AIA Living Design Series webinars and presentations at the Passivhaus Australia National Conference, and Learning Environments Australia events.

Her leadership in practice is evidenced through her establishment of a Sustainability Action Plan within Deicke Richards Architects.

As an emerging architect Dominka is dedicated to community focussed projects such as flexible training facilities and affordable housing, projects that become ecological, social, and economic assets.

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Schools are mini neighbourhoods, equipped with libraries, gardens, “town” halls, sporting fields, private spaces, public spaces, and more. And like a great neighbourhood, what makes for a great school is not necessarily the lavishness of its built environment but rather the sense of safety, comfort, connectivity and ownership it creates. Hymba Yumba Independent School, designed by Deicke Richards, is a fine example of this. Its collection of buildings, developed over three stages, has created a miniature neighbourhood ecosystem that has been strategically designed to adapt and evolve in response to the community’s needs. The outcome is a place that dismantles institutional characteristics and facilitates positive educational and cultural experiences for its students, teachers and families
– Georgia Birks, Architecture Au

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The enclosed bridge creates a safe and seamless connection between the refurbished 501 Ann Street building and the historic school campus, enabling students and staff to move easily between the two sites. Designed as part of the school’s broader campus strategy, the bridge reinforces the integration of new learning environments with the established campus fabric. Delivering this element required careful planning and coordination. The bridge spans a tight inner-city lane and its installation has been undertaken over two weekends to minimise disruption to surrounding streets and the school community. The first structural segment was lifted into place using a large mobile crane, forming the primary link between the two buildings, with the remaining sections installed shortly after.

For the design team at Deicke Richards, the bridge represents more than a piece of infrastructure. It is a connective architectural element that unifies the adaptive reuse of the Ann Street building with the life of the wider campus. By extending circulation across Dodge Lane, the bridge allows the refurbished facility to function as a natural extension of the school rather than a detached satellite building. The project demonstrates the opportunities inherent in adaptive reuse within dense urban contexts; existing structures can be re-imagined to support contemporary needs while remaining embedded within their urban setting. As construction continues, the installation of the bridge signals the emergence of a new chapter for 501 Ann Street that reconnects this building to the daily rhythms of the school and to the broader learning environment of All Hallows’ School.

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Fellowship recognises architects who have demonstrated a significant contribution to the profession, both within practice and beyond. Tim’s career reflects this distinction. Over more than two decades of dedicated service to architecture, he has progressed from Architectural Graduate to Principal, leading complex projects across education, community, aged care, housing and multi-residential sectors.

Tim is widely respected for his technical rigour, particularly in construction documentation and contract administration, where precision and clarity are critical to successful project delivery. He has led multidisciplinary consultant teams, navigated complex stakeholder environments, and consistently delivered projects that balance design intent with buildability and value.

Tim’s contribution extends beyond project work. His projects have received industry recognition, and he has served as a juror for the AIA Brisbane Awards in Educational Architecture, contributing to broader discourse on design excellence. As a Livable Housing Guideline Assessor, he has championed accessibility and inclusive design, particularly in residential and seniors living environments. Within Deicke Richards, he plays a key role in quality assurance and practice leadership.

Tim’s elevation to Fellow acknowledges not only his professional achievements, but his sustained commitment to service, integrity and the advancement of architecture. We congratulate Tim on this well-deserved honour!

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How might innovations like AI and ConTech advance climate resilience and social equity, delivering solutions to our embodied carbon, housing affordability, and wellbeing crises?

Bringing together architects, developers, engineers, planners, and policy makers, this year’s Sustainability Summit delved into where our industry is heading and how it must evolve to meet the challenges and opportunities of the era.

A finalist for Emerging Sustainable Designer Award, I was proud to travel to Sydney for the Summit with Practice Partner Cameron Davies, and I hope these takeaways inspire sustainable thinking in your own practice.

AI-Sparked Sustainability & the Built Environment

The transformative potential of AI in driving sustainable outcomes is much-touted. It offers new capabilities for modelling and analysing occupancy patterns, optimising façade and structural performance, reviewing design options and more, with the greatest impact early in a project when decisions have the highest sustainability leverage.

Significant challenges with AI, such as high energy consumption, the lack of standardised industry training, unclear data sources and unreliable outputs, were also underscored at the Summit. What remains is that as systems and models progress, policy frameworks and rigorous verification will be vital in shifting best practice from niche to everyday design culture.

Designing for Health & Wellbeing

Wellbeing emerged as a foundational component of sustainability, with ‘safe’ environments supporting more calm and healthy occupants and ‘unsafe’ spaces increasing stress while reducing productivity.

From intuitive way-finding in hospitals to sensory-specific features in community and work precincts, panellists explored how design can enhance security and cultural inclusion, with adaptable lighting, biophilic and inclusive design, low-contrast environments, and playful interventions discussed as key strategies for delivery.

Presenters maintained that building health depends on myriad factors, including physical, mental, social and cultural connection and that real‑time monitoring and early data collection are critical tools for measuring and improving occupant experience.

A Solution to Australia’s Housing Crisis?

The housing crisis is a structural challenge shaped by mismatched supply, rising costs, and a tendency to view housing as a wealth‑building mechanism. The Summit highlighted the urgent need for systemic reform, with a shift to apartment‑led density, build-to-rent models and social & affordable housing pathways.

Case studies like the Burnett Foundation’s innovative approach to low-marketing, cost‑effective apartments displayed alternative models that support long‑term affordability do exist. Speakers noted medium‑density housing (six to eight storeys), incentives for downsizing plus partnerships with church and community groups were necessary to deliver projects at scale, along with three‑storey walk‑ups as a forgotten but highly-fundable typology.

Embracing ConTech Methods & Ideas

Prefab and modular construction were presented as opportunities for fast, smart, and green delivery, with Fleetwood & Modscape showcasing the potential of digitally-enabled manufacturing and streamlined value chains supported by emerging funding models and national research initiatives.

While barriers persist particularly in the housing sector as a result of skills shortages, regulatory complexity, logistics, and early finance requirements, ConTech offers significant value for schools, healthcare, regional projects and developments seeking waste minimisation, standardisation and design‑for‑disassembly.

Demolish, Retrofit, Rebuild?

Deciding whether to demolish, retrofit or rebuild is central to commercial building sustainability. Beyond financial modelling, this requires careful assessment of embodied carbon, cultural value, structural potential and community identity.

Digital twins, circularity frameworks and green financing tools are now supporting better informed decisions. Presenters highlighted that retaining and repurposing existing structures can build social continuity, reduce emissions and maintain the ‘memory’ of place – offering meaningful alternatives to new construction.

What Next?

As built environment professionals, the scale and urgency of the challenges facing our sector are hard to ignore. Bestowing a glimpse into the breadth of innovation underway, the Sustainability Summit underscored the importance of curiosity, collaboration & design leadership in shaping healthy, equitable, and resilient places.

From my personal perspective, it reinforced the need to champion actionable strategies that bring our ecological and social sustainability commitments to life in every project we deliver.

*Get in touch with Dominika about your next project*.

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This article originally appeared in Aged Care Today’s Summer 2025 issue.

If I came to need 24-hour care, where might I feel at home? It’s a question I’ve been trying to answer for the 15 years I’ve been designing seniors’ housing, a calling sparked by visiting my grandmothers in care and working as an audiologist in homes – as they were called back then – early in my career. Considering how people will use the buildings I design is integral to my role as an architect and, while I’m proud of the spaces I’ve helped create for aged care, that question has remained at the top of my mind.

Residential aged care in Australia has improved considerably since my grandmothers’ time, but we’re not done yet. With an ageing population, demand far outstrips supply and much of what’s on offer still feels institutional – clinical, efficient and disconnected from the sense of home that defines dignity belonging in later life.

In 2024, I set out to uncover alternatives through the James Love Churchill Fellowship, supported by the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust. Exploring home-like models providing high levels of support to seniors in Europe, the UK and USA, I visited examples of the Green House Project and dementia villages, intergenerational village approaches and hybrid facilities where traditional staffing and servicing were delivered into smaller ‘households’ within a large development.

Creating homeliness

Homes offer a sense of belonging and control. To make a household more homely, residents should be encouraged to personalise not only their private room but also the common spaces within the household. Residents should have input into recipes, music and television programs. Visitors entering the household should knock and be formally welcomed, as in a family home. In terms of design elements, I found the key features impacting homeliness were:

■ separating residents into small households – the closer to family size, the better

■ a front door and entry lobby in each household

■ varying degrees of privacy, from a very public entry to private resident spaces

■ domestic-looking kitchens and laundries

■ concealment of clinical and staff areas and equipment

■ ready access to natural light

■ outdoor spaces for each household

■ steering clear of long corridors.

Small households

We share our homes with people we know and who know us. Creating these relationships within a care home is more challenging as it is more a ‘share house’ type arrangement, but some providers are successful in carefully selecting residents with similar life experiences to reside together. I found the smaller Homemaking for older Australians Rethinking residential aged care households – those with six or seven residents – were more successful than the larger ones with 12, probably because it’s easier to get to know each other when living with fewer people.

Consistent staffing

The most successful homes adopted a ‘universal worker’ staffing approach. Staff are routinely assigned to work within the same household so they can build stronger relationships with the residents.

As universal workers undertake all cooking, cleaning, mobility assistance and personal care, the number of different staff working with residents is reduced. Staff become part of the household team along with residents. This social model, rather than the traditional medical model, facilitates true person-centred care. By knowing residents’ preferences and abilities, they can focus support where it is of most benefit – encouraging the residents to be as independent as possible, restoring their sense of purpose and self-esteem.

Sparking joy

My visits to successful, truly homelike residential aged care homes both in Australia and overseas highlighted the fact that many elements need to come together to maximise the homeliness of a care setting.

When we achieve this combination, we also seem to cultivate the happiest residents and staff. This impacts the overall health and wellbeing of residents and has implications for staff retention. It’s clear steps towards developing a sense of homeliness in residential aged care should be encouraged.

It is heartening these approaches are being adopted by more providers in Australia. It is a welcome shift from the traditional nursing facility approach and will take time to be fully implemented, but we are heading in the right direction.

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‘There’s nothing about me without me and what is essential to some is often harmful to none.’ The words of Heads Together for Brain Injury’s Kate Heine, presenting alongside young people with lived experience of disability Audrey Anderson and Hailey Barber, are particularly pertinent on International Day of People with Disability.

And though the 2025 theme, ‘fostering disability inclusive societies for advancing social progress,’ may feel a formidable goal, one thing I know from years designing spaces for young people like Audrey and Hailey is listening – before, during and after projects – is key to creating change.

Travelling to Melbourne for the Symposium, I was keen to hear the latest insights on education environments for all – that go beyond equality to achieve equity, giving young people what they need to flourish and thrive, not just survive. I’m already applying learnings into my practice and hope my reflection will add value to your work too.

Refuge as Prospect: An Anthology of ASPECTSS, Learning & the Sensory Landscape Professor ****Magda Mostafa, Principal & Co-Founding Partner, StudioTM / Associate Chair in the Department of Architecture, American University in Cairo.

‘Universal design should aspire not only to universal access, but universal delight.’

The most powerful provocation of Prof Mostafa’s keynote was simple: we already know how to design inclusive ‘islands’ – what we need now are inclusive ‘cities.’ Not just autism-friendly classrooms, but entire environments that support behavioural, emotional and sensory needs, from childhood to adulthood.

She introduced a number of ideas to challenge how we design:

1. When it comes to infrastructure, consider the physical and sensory equally – embedding clarity, predictability and relief into everyday movement is good design for all.
2. Transitions are the missing layer – from decompression spaces to campus-wide transition gardens, regulation takes place in the in-between and micro-moments determine whether someone arrives calm, overwhelmed or disengaged.
3. Removing overload for some benefits all – designing for sensory needs first results in environments that are more calm, dignified, intuitive and universally usable.
4. ASPECTSS* is research-backed, scalable and measurable – Mostafa’s ASPECTSS* Autism Design Index, covering Acoustics, Spatial Sequencing, Escape Space, Compartmentalisation, Transitions, Sensory Zoning & Safety, has now been applied from single rooms to whole campuses (Dublin City University a leading case study).
5. Autistic consultation is essential, not optional – and is best achieved when visual communication is prioritised over verbal, spaces are ordered, group sizes are small, expectations are shared early and autistic participants are positioned as experts.

Mostafa provides a blueprint for human-centred design done right. View her Autism Friendly Design Guide here.

Designing for the Comfort of Users with Diverse Needs Dorsa Fatourehchi & Jenna Mikus, University of Melbourne

Focusing on the evolving understanding of comfort in the built environment, this break-out highlighted the need to develop quantitative and qualitative ways of measuring comfort.

Fatourehchi and Mikus contrasted adaptive comfort theory, which uses measurable factors like air quality and temperature, with insights from interviews and surveys to highlight how comfort is multimodal, comprising:

• acoustics – noise management, reverberation, sound;
• air quality – smell, taste;
• lighting – glare, sight, visual comfort;
• thermal comfort – touch, temperature;
• visual and spatial comfort – especially relevant for neurodivergent users.

Introducing standards like those developed by ASHRAE as ‘a valuable baseline,’ Fatourehchi and Mikus posited that as people adapt to environments, environments must also adapt to people.

The question that remains is how can we design spaces that respond to individual needs, rather than requiring individuals to manage and endure discomfort? Increasing familiarity with comfort literacy and post occupancy evaluation is one place we can start – stay across research like the Designing Learning Spaces for Diversity, Inclusion & Participation ARC Linkage Project here.

Time for a Dedicated Disruptive Influence Dr Jodie Wilson, Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre, La Trobe University

In closing, Dr Wilson’s declaration that human-centred design begins with curiosity, empathy and a deep understanding of people’s feelings and motivations – particularly those shared via lived experience – has stuck with me. Leaning and listening is what reveals the nuanced needs that should drive design solutions, like scaffolding body-doubling for ADHD, where simply working alongside another person enhances focus and regulation.

Because sensory needs intersect with myriad factors such as culture, environment, identity and lived experience, an inclusive approach must embrace intersectionality – as designers, we can’t assume universal norms and must remain open to learning from diverse user perspectives.

By integrating sensory science with empathy and humility, we can create environments that honour individual differences, reduce sensory stress and promote autonomy, comfort and wellbeing for all users.

Watch back select panels from the Designing Learning Spaces for Neurodiversity & Disability Symposium here. Get in touch with Magda about a future education project here.

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If you would like to donate, please email molly@deickerichards.com.au or simply drop past the office: 58 Baxter St Fortitude Valley.

Thank you so much for all of your support so far and thank you in advance for your support ahead of the busy Christmas season.
We can achieve so much more when we work together!

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