Macquarie University Arts Precinct Project

The consolidation of the Faculty of Arts, the largest Faculty at Macquarie University, on their foundation site in a complex of three buildings linked with a central courtyard and an ETFE roofed Atrium & adjoining Roof Garden Space to create a new Precinct for the Arts at Macquarie University The design solution encourages student, staff and community collaboration in response to the Faculty's new Strategic Plan with interconnecting links joining the visually transparent vertical circulation hubs provided in the new Public facing Museum & Languages Building and the redeveloped Arts Tower with the associated tuition centre through a multilevel Intercultural Foyer space celebrating the future and history of Arts The existing brutalist style 3 storey tuition building located adjacent to the central pedestrian spine of the campus was extensively re-developed by opening the ground level to connect the new precinct to the main campus pedestrian spine, reversing the circulation to activate the new central courtyard and re-configuring all tuition spaces The new central courtyard accommodates the substantial level change between the campus pedestrian spine and the re-imagined Arts Tower to produce an attractive major entry to the Arts Precinct with a series of accessibly linked social use outdoor meeting platforms with an associated central cafe space An innovative, energy efficient twin wall facade was developed for the Arts Tower to address the challenges of re-using major components of existing legacy fabric with limited floor to floor heights in an environmentally sensitive response that provides high quality services, the desired level of visual transparency & interconnectivity to meet the University's One Planet objectives along with a new central collaborative hub linking all 8 stories of the Arts Tower The porous ground plane of the Arts Tower contains Concierge wayfinding facilities, a variety of student and staff support spaces and directly links to the Atrium and adjoining Museum facilities The new public face of the Arts is created by the third building containing publicly accessible Museum & Languages Facilities, Tuition, Function & Academic Spaces, a collaborative central hub linking all 4 stories which is directly connected to all levels of the Arts Tower and an all weather roof garden for outdoor social and tuition use The Museum houses an internationally significant Ancient & Modern History collection, including a valuable Numismatics collection, along with associated work and research areas to support the educational resource and ongoing research roles of a University Museum within a high quality publicly accessible & interactive Museum facility that is a major community face of the Faculty and its extensive international research programme The Central Courtyard and Atrium spaces functionally & visually unify the Precinct, supporting active and passive social and outdoor learning, in conjunction with the multilevel connections provided by the Connecting Link and associated vertical collaborative hubs, to promote interactive collaboration throughout the complex The ETFE roof links the buildings, the atrium & the roof garden with a transparent, elegant & light structure that maximises the use of natural light throughout the Precinct.