Flexibility and adaptability will be the key for the proposed Victorian quarantine village, the architect of the Northern Territory's model says.
Premier Daniel Andrews is considering establishing a version of the Howard Springs quarantine facility.
James Dorrat, is the technical director at Aecome, which designed the Manigurr-ma gas plant workers' village in Howard Springs outside Darwin in 2012.
"It is motel-style accommodation and so keeps people distant," he said.
"It can be used long-term as a recreation or tourist part, a camp facility for educational institutions, or for gradual integration into the local surrounding community.
"Our brief was specific at the time, but we also designed the flexibility and adaptability into it.
Looking ahead
Mr Dorrat said a similar design would not take long to produce, but offsite manufacturing and installing underground infrastructure would be time consuming.
"It's not a case of just plonking things on the ground and hoping for the best," he said.
"After this pandemic, the village could be used for things like bushfires, or other accommodation to provide a life for the village."
Howard Springs' $400 million village features self-contained "suburbs" with courtyards, parks and breezeways.
It also has a pub, a fully equipped sports centre with gym, pitches, courts, swimming pools and a jogging track.
The award-winning 67-hectare Manigurr-ma Village, 20km east-southeast of Darwin, was completed by Laing O'Rourke in 18 months in August 2013.
It was used to house some 3,500 workers who were building the $34 billion Inpex-Total Ichthys LNG onshore facility on Darwin Harbour.
The village was vacated in 2019 and was handed over to the NT government just before the pandemic hit.
Mr Andrews said he was weighing up a facility near Melbourne's airports.
"People would be in the same location but would not be sharing the same spaces, so they're not under the same roofline," he said.
Victorian Chief Health Officer Brett Sutton said something akin to the Howard Springs village would be "fantastic".
"An open-air setting with a real distance between rooms is … what we'd all love to see," he said.
