Learning Innovation Building

The site is located on the St Lucia campus and is part of a well established and significant precinct of the university Master Plan. The site has significant prominence in the University campus. Well established relationships and links with the existing campus roads, Great Court, the Circular Drive and the open green space adjacent to the Brisbane River had to be considered in the design process. The site is positioned between existing occupied buildings, some of which are heritage listed as part of the Great Court Complex.

The proposed building is a four storey high educational facility providing accommodation for three university departments. The spaces provided include experimental seminar/teaching spaces, office/administration spaces, meeting/boardrooms, media editing suites and staff support facilities. A studio or atelier space termed the ‘Innovation Laboratory’ will form the focus for various department specific activities. A three storey high void space will link the horizontal floor plates vertically, improve the internal environment and contribute to the efficiency of the building.

The design process intends to maintain and improve ‘hidden’ or secondary pedestrian links to surrounding spaces and buildings. Public courtyard space adds to an existing sequence of external spaces within the campus, including the Great Court.

Our approach is to achieve a design that is sensitive to surrounding heritage buildings, pedestrian links and campus activity. As a result the external form is complex and reacts to the shape of the surrounding buildings. A number of the facades are highly transparent to display internal activities to the wider campus.

Views of the campus, river, eastern suburbs and the Green Bridge will be available from the upper levels of the proposed scheme. Openings in the external envelope have been positioned to frame external views and to maximise daylighting to the interior of the building.

Program
Office space for five university departments dedicated to the innovation of teaching and learning. Audio-visual integrated landscape courtyards, and flexible seminar spaces.

Client
University of Queensland

Area
2,250m ²

Status
Completed