Formerly known as the Technology Innovation Complex, this week we’ve been revisiting the worksite at JCU to share key project milestones and design highlights.
The Engineering & Innovation Place will deliver leading-edge science, technology, engineering and mathematics research and educational facilities. The design sets new benchmarks for sustainability and resilience in tropical architecture.
This is a project led by KIRK, in partnership with Charles Wright Architects, i4architecture, and constructed by BESIX Watpac.
The atrium is a central gathering place that provides the communal heart of the building.
A multi-modal space, it is designed to be a hub for social activity and an Ideas Market for learning, collaboration and knowledge sharing. The space will support traditional methods of learning, as well as emergent pedagogies.
Key aspects of the design ensure a sustainable, enduring build:
Our design works as a mixed mode space to maximise efficiency of the building and minimise energy consumption – long into the future.
These Victorian Ash Glulam beams weigh almost a tonne and are designed to support one of the principal spaces in JCU’s Engineering and Innovation Place – in size, placement and significance.
The MMS epitomises learning, exploratory collaboration and flexibility. It is an exploratory space aligned to student activation, engagement, and new forms of learning. This space takes the typical classroom format of group tables and chairs and uses tiered level changes to create a fully functioning studio space.
Seating 180 students, multiple groups can use the MMS at any one time, for a diversity of purposes, 24/7.
Traditionally, the services of a building are hidden away. Here these key functional services are reticulated externally and expressed making them highly visible. Clad in folded perforated zinc panels, they celebrate the technical function of the building as a centre of teaching and research.
This design choice ensures the ducts are easily accessible for future changes and servicing, and also maximise the efficiency of the floor plate while reducing floor-to-floor height.
The Flue Frames are mechanically complex and logistically challenging to transport and install - Congratulations to the builder on their successful installation.
