The project brief asked for a major refurbishment to the existing campus library, creation of a new Connected Learning Common and the provision of new core facilities upgrades. This included a new lift, new stairs and toilets, as well as the design of new Video Conferencing and Flexible Learning Space facilities.

The scope included the design of a new functioning Multi-Gen Plant, which is also used as a teaching tool for students. The brief also called for the rationalisation and extensions to the existing walkway network, providing defined clarity and connections throughout the campus.

The new Connected Learning Common building is dynamic and compelling in its planning and form, with double height volumes, glazed brick blade walls, light wells, amphitheatre transitions between existing and new forms, as well as a feature glazed façade along the eastern end of the building. This glazed façade is made up of 3 staggered segments, with an expressed, askew structural steel skeleton and a framed perpendicular infill fixed glazing suite.

Another key element of the architectural dialogue is expressed along the new façade, which was designed to improve access as well as develop a new campus identity. This provided a transition that progressed along the length of the existing street frontage and linked the entry at the Administration to the new flexible, communal and connected library space. Here, the new elevated walkway’s structural grid is defined with a dark grey circular column on the ground floor, which is expressed as a projecting CFC blade on Level 1. The colour of the CFC blades vary across a range of yellows to greens and works to create a sense of movement along the façade. Between these grid elements are a series of aluminium battens which provide unity to the whole building as they screen the length of the existing and new building’s southern façade.