Safe by Design Aged Care Environments
Working Prototype by Opposite

Design the risk out before the walls go up.

An interactive planning tool that turns manual handling and occupational violence standards into live, visual design decisions, so safer environments are built in rather than retrofitted.

Safe by Design aged care room assessment
How the platform works

From a blank floor plan to a defensible design decision.

The room is the unit of assessment. Set the project context, arrange fixtures and equipment on a live plan, and watch the design risk respond in real time, each flag linked back to the standard that explains why.

STEP 01

Set the context

Capture project type, room purpose and resident profile, a dementia bedroom carries different design rules to a bariatric ensuite, and the platform tailors guidance accordingly.

STEP 02

Design on a live plan

Drag ceiling hoist coverage, beds, doors and sightlines onto the room. Reach zones, transfer clearances and blind spots update instantly as you move things.

STEP 03

Read the residual risk

A plain-language risk picture, the equipment the design assumes, and the outstanding actions, ready for design reviews, governance and the safety-in-design file.

The design principle underneath

We reward the top of the hierarchy of control.

Administrative controls, training, procedures, safe-work method statements, do the least and fail the most. This platform pushes every recommendation toward elimination and engineering, because the cheapest place to remove a risk is the drawing board.

ELIMINATE
Remove the hazard by designmost effective
SUBSTITUTE
Replace with lower-risk approach
ENGINEER
Ceiling hoists, layout, sightlines
ADMIN
Procedures & trainingweaker
PPE
Last line of defenceleast effective
Why it matters here: a ceiling hoist designed into the room eliminates the lifting hazard for every one of the ~15 daily transfers. A mobile hoist retrofitted later depends on storage, availability and staff choice, an administrative control wearing an engineering badge.
The evidence base

Built on the standards and research that already exist.

WorkSafe Victoria guidance

Designing workplaces for safer handling of people; transferring people safely; prevention of violence and aggression in health services.

Fleming environmental design principles

University of Wollongong dementia design research, reducing agitation and OVA triggers through the built environment.

Australasian Health Facility Guidelines

Room sizing, circulation and clearance benchmarks adapted for the aged care context.

Sector best practice

Benchmarked against award-winning services and public health psychogeriatric settings.

"Existing OVA guidance is written for hospitals, not for aged care, and not for memory support."
That gap is the opportunity. This platform translates hospital-oriented and dementia-specific research into aged care design controls that a project team can actually apply, room by room, a resource the regulator and the wider sector do not yet have.
Design brief context, BVAC · Croydon VIC

Open the memory support bedroom demo.

The demo loads a real dementia bedroom and ensuite, pre-flagged against Fleming's principles and safe manual handling standards. Move things around and watch the risk respond.

Project setup

Tell the platform what you're designing.

Context tailors every recommendation, so you see the rules that apply, not a generic checklist.

1
Project
2
Room
3
Residents

What kind of project is this?

Determines whether we optimise for a clean-sheet design or work within existing constraints.

Load a layout
Dementia Bedroom + Ensuite
4.2m × 4.8m · memory support
4.2 m
4.8 m
Visual standards library

Standards you can actually see.

Each standard is a visual card: the principle, what good looks like, the common mistakes, and the equipment it assumes, with the source reference and a technical illustration for each.