Woods Bagot has completed a new learning and teaching building for Deakin University’s Burwood campus in Melbourne’s east, which will house the university’s law school.
Designed to be “intentionally non-institutional,” the building will house five levels of flexible, active learning spaces.
“The building’s arresting geometry arose from the innovative blend of learning spaces held within,” said Woods Bagot principal Sarah Ball. “Each space addresses a different emerging methodology of teaching, doing away with the traditional lecture theatre in the process.”
Instead of traditional lecture theatres, the building has three large, tiered presentation spaces known as Premier Learning Spaces, which can also be used for collaborative private study. Large group working spaces can also operate as informal study spaces.
The Premier Learning Spaces are housed in zinc-clad curved, extruded forms, which are juxtaposed against the rectilinear teaching wing of the building.
Deakin Law School building by Woods Bagot.
Image:
Peter Bennetts
“It’s an orchestrated contrast of masses,” said principal and project design lead Bruno Mendes.
A circulation tower in the west building has a sculpted form with fluted curved concrete panels, which capture light and shadows throughout the day.
The building also has two levels of student health and wellbeing services, as well as a Wellness Garden located between the building and Gardeners Creek Reserve. The garden features native plants stones, a deconstructed creek and tiered seating.
The building is sited at the north-west edge of the campus, which is separated from the rest of the campus by a waterway. As a result, a new bridge connects the building to the rest campus.
“With an understanding of the proposed bridge design, we saw this constraint as an opportunity for the building to form a mediation role within the campus, an organizational framework for the public realm, and the existing campus infrastructure,” Mendes said.
“The building’s striking form and glinting materiality serves as a form of wayfinding, ushering students across the link bridge and creating campus traversability that has never existed before.”
The law school is the first large learning and teaching facility to be built at the campus in a decade.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
