UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND GLOBAL CHANGE INSTITUTE BY HASSELL

The Global Change Institute is a $32 million building designed by HASSELL which meets the world’s most advanced levels of sustainability.

The building demonstrates sustainable technological research and pilots innovative sustainable building solutions. The building has been designed to work with the natural environment and will operate as a zero-energy and carbon neutral workplace.

It will be naturally ventilated for most of the year and generate and store all its own power on-site through renewable solar energy sources that are pollution-free. All excess power will be delivered back to the national grid.

The GCI Building also represents the first Australian use of structural Geopolymer concrete, a low-carbon product produced with significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions than conventional concrete.

The building moves away from a framework of consumption of the world’s resources to one that contributes to the restoration and regeneration of the environment.

It will also act as a live research site, with the building systems and occupants used to assess optimal comfort conditions in low-energy buildings for the sub-tropics.

The building features an operable sun shading system that tracks the sun and protects the glass louvres which encourage natural ventilation. The air flows across occupied spaces to the central atrium which acts as the building’s lungs, discharging warm air through its thermal chimney.

The translucent ETFE atrium roof allows natural light into the interior while insulating from the sun’s heat. Optimal natural lighting is supported by environmentally-friendly LED lighting.

The building is cooled with chilled water flushed through the exposed sculptural precast floor panels. Rainwater storage of 60,000 litres services the hydronic cooling system, kitchen and shower.

A green wall, bush tucker garden and bio-retention basin breathe life into the building’s green ethos, and UQ’s St Lucia campus pedestrian links provide easy access by foot or bike.

Location: Brisbane QLD, Australia 
Architects: HASSELL 
Area: 3,865 sqm 
Year: 2013 
Photographs: Angus Martin

GASP – STAGE 2 BY ROOM 11

GASP stage two is the penultimate gesture of the Glenorchy Art and Sculpture Park (GASP!) .  It is composed of architecture that responds to  the scale of the surrounding landform. 

 

Blunt forms frame and command the superlative Tasmanian landscape.  Colour and architecture have been used as a vehicle for  re-evaluation and re-appreciation of place. 

The re-forming of the shoreline embraces the expanse of Elwick Bay, the bay becomes integral to the experience, a unity has been created. architects

“Room 11 Architects in collaboration with Megan Baynes designed the long low boardwalk, defined by balusters painted in a cacophony of colours to represent Glenorchy’s diverse community.

The boardwalk comprises three fully accessible lengths totalling some 800 metres, a large barbecue pavilion (the ‘Grove Pavilion’) and a small entry pavilion (the ‘Little John Rivulet Pavilion’) at the northern end.

Sitting just above the high tide level, the boardwalk cuts a consistent datum line through the site. Oblique views reveal the 44 rhythmically composed colours and a striking moiré effect rolling across the structure, matched to the walking or driving speed of whoever views it. The structure is wired for sound.

Spanning the space between landmark trees, the partially enclosed Grove Pavilion offers a place to sit or barbecue out of the wind at the walk’s midway point.

Concrete blade walls clad in ironbark battens form the vertical structure and a very thin, flat, pre-tensioned roof is designed to complete a frame to the river view.

A long timber bench running along the length of the pavilion invites repose, with its ironbark cladding at an ergonomic angle, while a lovely quirk is a large pane of orange glass in the rear wall.

From the road it shifts the river view into sepia. From within, it looks back to a dramatic, amber-toned Glenorchy sitting at the foot of Mount Wellington.” Judith Abell, Architectural Review Asia Pacific.

Location: Glenorchy, Tasmania, Australia

Architect: Room 11

Team Lead Architect: Thomas Bailey

Project Team: Megan Baynes, James Wilson, Aaron Roberts, Ryan Cawthorn, Nathan Crump

Length: 3km

Materials: timber, stainless steel, concrete, glass & paint

Year: 2013

Client: Glenorchy City Council

Photographer: Ben Hosking

RAH SITE DESIGN COMPETITION WINNERS ANNOUNCED

Deputy Premier John Rau announced the major prize winners for the Royal Adelaide Hospital Design Competition. “Once the hospital moves in 2016, the current RAH site opens up huge potential for a wide range of possible uses. The open ideas competition has been about exploring the possibilities for the site” he said.

First Prize -Slash (Victoria) with Phillips/Pilkington Architects: “We seek to reintegrate the surrounding city and parklands. In removing accreted parts of building that have clogged the site, we open up the buildings to be part of an urban system, with their own identity and program.

The proposal makes a proposition of retention and therefore reduces energy that would be required in new building construction. The primacy of adaptive re-use is supported by several key initiatives including on-site waste treatment, water retention and on-site power generation that can be extended to service beyond the site” says architects.

“This submission provides a generous extension of the Park Lands into the site, moving across the site from east to west, finally arriving as a major park presence on Frome Road. In so doing, this strategy significantly enhances the site’s relationship to the university campus to the west” Jury comment.

Second Prize -Bondhag & De Rosa with Taylor Cullity Lethlean: “The site is declared an urban forum, moulded by the given built fabric and new interventions, and made permeable by covered and outdoor public places. The site will remain over a given timeframe, in a state of ‘incompleteness’. The notion that the site, with its built forms, can be moulded or adapted at any stage during the redevelopment timeframe. Initiative and curiosity is to be stimulated by making knowledge and resources available” says architects.

“The jury was impressed by the considered reuse of existing built fabric within this submission. A simple strategy of editing, reordering and augmenting the site’s current built form provides multiple adaptable possibilities for the site. The submission does not locate cultural uses in the high-visibility areas of the site’s periphery, but rather proposes to shift the cultural program “in-board” to the centre of the site. This promotes movement through and across the site. Frome Road and North Terrace buildings are assigned commercial and institutional functions” Jury comment.

Second Prize –Nice Architects with Mulloway Studios: “ADELAIDE ROCKS is a new urban quarter. It is an engaging, unexpected, fun, active and multi-layered place.  A hill formed from the debris of demolished buildings that turns waste into a positive, exciting, and unique urban space. The proposed building is seen as an iconic entry element into the city. It provides a bookend to the development along North Terrace and contributes to the broader city development patterns” says architects.

“The submission proposes to retain and restore buildings along both Frome Road and North Terrace, while demolishing the buildings within the site’s centre. The waste from this demolition is proposed to be formed into a hillscape, with the site becoming both an “eco city landmark” and creating a unique vantage point from which visitors may experience a new set of views over the city” Jury comment.

SAHMRI RESEARCH INSTITUTE BY WOODS BAGOT

The institute is set to be a world-class centre of research excellence located in a medical precinct that will also be home to the new Royal Adelaide Hospital (NRAH).

The institute’s nine research modules will house up to 700 researchers looking at ways to foster innovation and improvements in health services, leading to improved health outcomes for the whole community.

The sculptural qualities of SAHMRI’s form aim to inspire and promote the building’s function.

The transparent facade showcases two internal atriums, while the building’s form is further expressed by its unique triangulated dia-grid facade inspired by the skin of a pine cone.

The form’s articulated skin adapts and responds to its environment, becoming a living organism that responds to the position of the sun.

The SAHMRI design and construction team are working collaboratively to deliver a flexible, adaptable, healthy and sustainable facility which is on target for a LEED GOLD rating.

The key driver of the building design is to foster collaboration between researchers, achieved through architecture that allows a visual connection between floors and an interconnecting spiral stair.

Following an intensive environmental analysis with consultants Atelier 10, Woods Bagot used parametric modelling tools to integrate environmental, programmatic, and formal requirements into the facade.

“Woods Bagot’s global team worked on the project together, including designers from the Adelaide, London, New York and San Francisco studios,” said Senior Associate, Enzo Caroscio.

“Key to the success of the SAHMRI is its central proposition: a new and liberating lab typology that promotes collaboration and medical discovery, attracting the best researchers from around the world,” said Woods Bagot Principal, Peter Miglis.

Location: Adelaide, Australia 
Architect: Woods Bagot 
Leadership Team: ​Thomas Masullo, Enzo Caroscio, Peter Miglis, Anoop Menon 
Civil / Structural / Facade Engineers:Aurecon 
Building Services Engineers: Norman, Disney & Young 
Facade Environmental Consultants:Atelier 10 
ESD Consultants: Cundall 
Managing Contractor: Hindmarsh 
Department for Transport, Energy and Infrastructure: Project Risk Management 
Laboratory Specialists: RFD 
Cost Manager: Rider Levett Bucknall 
Area: ​25,000 m² 
Year: 2013 
Client: ​South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute 
Photo: Peter Fisher, Michelle Burfield