The vision for the modest UniSQ Engineering project is to sustainably morph an existing utilitarian building into a new vision for on-campus teaching and research at the Springfield campus.
The new solution had to respond to the UniSQ brief for an iconic statement that would assist to reinforce the services that UniSQ offer at this campus. The new building solution completely encompassess the original building, successfully making a positive contribution to the streetscape and urban forms present.
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USQ Springfield Expansion of F Block
Educational Architecture (Built)
Firm
dwp
Architect/Designer
Scott Chapple
Design Team
Scott Chapple, Genevieve Hoeben
Project Location
Sinnathamby Drive, Springfield QLD, Australia
Country
Australia
Photographer/Copyright
©Scott Shirley
Social Media Handles
Facebook: Not Available
YouTube: Not Available
Instagram: Not Available
Twitter: Not Available
Website URL
www.dwp.com
The building has three primary facades, one to the pedestrian campus centre, and two facing outwards toward the public domain representing the edge of the campus to the (future) adjacent community.
The building facades actively respond to the urban context even though the primary access to and from the building takes place within the campus. The building is sited to reinforce the campus masterplan and to create active and passive places to inhabit.
It is a building that successfully presents both an outward civic presence to the community and an active pedestrian friendly frontage to the campus.
The building is designed in response to the Engineering brief, which requires most spaces to be of a flexible nature rather than to be so specific that they preclude different uses in the future.As such most spaces are intended to be multi-purpose to accommodate different activities, and as needs change into the future. Base building services are exposed as a living expression of the Engineering nature of the occupants, and to enable future re-configuration.
The project places ‘Engineering’ on display celebrating its purpose by overtly expressing the structural engineering, the laboratory fume hood services on the exterior of the building, and exposing building services throughout the interior.
The building includes multiple movement sensors embedded throughout the building to allow students to monitor in real time its structural health performance as part of their engineering studies.
Though modest in scale this project is ambitious in thought. USQ wanted a building that would have capacity within to cater for an increased population of users over time. The building has met this challenge.