Lot Fourteen: Repurposing a Hospital to an Innovative Hub

When the Royal Adelaide Hospital relocated to a new state-of-the-art facility in 2017, the Government of South Australia had a bold plan in place to transform the seven-hectare site into something completely different. A place for world-class innovation and creativity to solve complex global challenges and create greater economic, social and cultural prosperity – known as Lot Fourteen.

So how is a former hospital site being redeveloped to become one of the world’s most exciting destinations for inspiration, entrepreneurship and culture?

The Department of the Premier and Cabinet is responsible for the management and delivery of the Lot Fourteen project on behalf of the Government of South Australia. Renewal SA is responsible for providing development services for the project under the direction of the State Project Lead, Department of the Premier and Cabinet.

Working with Renewal SA on the redevelopment of the district, WSP has been involved since the start of the project planning in 2013. From helping to develop the site-wide masterplan, sustainability and digital technology strategies and infrastructure design, to the refurbishment and adaptive reuse of its existing buildings.

Located on North Terrace in the heart of Adelaide’s central business district, the new mixed-use district is home to global tech companies, start-ups and strategic partners including the Australian Space Agency, the Australian Cyber Collaboration Centre and the University of Adelaide’s Australian Institute for Machine Learning. Once completed, Lot Fourteen will bring together over 6,000 high-skilled workers, researchers and innovators working in the space, defence, cyber and creative industries, underpinned by critical technologies.

Location

Adelaide, South Australia, Australia

Client

Renewal SA (on behalf of DPC)

Project Status

Current indicative completion 2028

ACCREDITATIONS:

WELL Pre-certified Community and 6 Star Green Star Community

It will also include a range of unique facilities hoping to welcome over 700,000 people a year. From the Australian Space Discovery Centre already open, to the forthcoming Entrepreneur & Innovation Centre, Australian Defence Technologies Academy, and Tarrkarri – Centre for First Nations Cultures. The land that Lot Fourteen stands on has held a special significance for the Kaurna people for over 60,000 years and Tarrkarri aims to honor and share that heritage, while creating new opportunities for Aboriginal communities.

With the help of our engineers, the whole site has been designed for wellbeing and sustainability, becoming the first WELL Pre-certified Community in the Southern Hemisphere and a 6 Star Green Star community. As well as reusing existing buildings, over 70% of the site will be open to the public with landscaped green spaces connected to Adelaide Botanic Gardens, al fresco cafés and courtyards, local and cultural artworks and pathways leading to the city’s nearby universities.

Transforming historic buildings into contemporary workplaces

Lot Fourteen includes six fully refurbished heritage listed buildings and one of the biggest challenges has been to transform these former hospital facilities into workspaces for hi-tech industries.

For example, the four-storey Bice Building, originally built in 1927, has been adapted to create 2,000sqm of offices and breakout spaces – complete with a restored façade, structural and seismic upgrades, new building services and lighting, and a courtyard canopy so people can use the surrounding outdoor space all year round.

Krishna Narapuraju, WSP’s Lead Engineer on the project explained: “We worked closely with the architect, state heritage authority and Renewal SA to preserve the architectural fabric of the buildings while carrying out the structural and seismic upgrades needed to meet contemporary building regulations in Australia.”

The team have also designed an all-electric heating and air conditioning solution to deliver new building services to the whole heritage precinct – one of the first systems of its kind in Australia. Located on the roof of the McEwin building, the shared central energy thermal plant combines heating and cooling infrastructure with simultaneous heat recovery equipment to provide energy efficient heating and air conditioning.

To enable the buildings to be managed and operated independently, each has its own plant room, with heating and air conditioning delivered via a network of secondary systems installed in the old precinct catacombs. Most of these systems were precision-made and tested offsite to meet spatial constraints, with large sections of pipework and pumps prefabricated to speed up project completion.

Krishna continues: “We’ve also reduced the impact of building services to help preserve the architectural integrity of the buildings and maximize space. For instance, in the McEwin building we used a 3-in-1 ductwork design to create a sense of openness and minimize air conditioning from view.”

New workspace by 2028 (sqm)

+100,000

Open space by 2028 (SQM)

+35,000

First Nations cultural space by 2028 (SQM)

20,000

Creating a highly connected, digital-ready site

As an innovation district focused on collaboration and enabled by technologies such as AI, quantum and robotics, Lot Fourteen needs to provide people with a seamless digital experience. Our team worked closely with the SA government and the project’s technology providers to create a digital masterplan for the site. Roneel Singh, Director of Technology Systems at WSP explained:

“To ensure Lot Fourteen is digital-ready now and in the future, we developed a secure, resilient, flexible advanced communications infrastructure, including a directly connected 5G network across the entire district and super-fast broadband. Having the scalable infrastructure in place to build on enables the site to support the needs of different tenant organizations – from adding new technologies such as IoT sensors, to setting up secure data zones.”

Diane Dixon, Lot Fourteen State Project Lead, from the Government of South Australia concludes: “Using the power of co-location, collaboration and innovation, Lot Fourteen is bringing research and business enterprises together in a curated, collaborative way to literally design and build the future, while helping to create a South Australia full of opportunity and potential for all.”

What makes Lot Fourteen stand out