Winged presence; one of the most important things in an educational institution is to engender a sense of place: an area of the mind we can relate to for the rest of our lives. Here is a powerful focus - Brief Article

Architectural Review, The, May, 2002 by Gemma Henrikson

EXHIBITION AND PERFORMANCE BUILDING, UNIVERSITY OF NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA

ARCHITECT

MGT ARCHITECTS

Quite the most dramatic part of the University of New South Wales at Kensington, Sydney is the Scientia, which houses the institution's main ceremonial and social spaces and forms a formal focus for a rather ragged campus largely inhabited by utilitarian buildings. But the place has a mall that has largely been respected by successive generations of architects.

Scientia is on the mall in the middle of the university, at a point where there is a change in level in the site, which falls here from east to west. It focuses on a dramatic timber and glass portico which acts as foyer to the public spaces on each side. At first, the whole design seems very simple: big plinth with metal boxes on top penetrated by portico, a bold, monumental, almost classical composition needed to bring order to the campus. In fact, the building is extremely carefully tailored to its location and the handling of spaces and levels is remarkably thoughtful.

One of the main problems of the site was the proximity of the Civil Engineering department to the east, a remarkably uncivil '60s complex that comes almost to the top of the bank, and is made the more unwelcoming by a brick tower almost aggressive in its dullness. To the west of the slope is Electrical Engineering, so the falling site was uncomfortably narrow. On it had to be placed the main ceremonial hall of the university, the main performance spaces and a major function room.

The performance spaces are inside the blank plinths, which are faced in sandstone as a reminiscence of the bank into which the Scientia is built. Stone courses are carefully differentiated into strata by thin strings of precast concrete that become closer together as the plinth rises until they form the balustrades of the terraces that surround the two big aluminium clad boxes that contain the ceremonial rooms.

Over the north side of the plinth is the Leighton Hall, a dramatic double-height galleried space in which a folded roof (a la Festival of Britain) is supported on slender laminated Oregon pine columns that have profound entasis following the bending stresses between stainless-steel pin joints at top and bottom. Bright reds and yellows are offset by calm beech and silky oak panels; the big volume is bathed in light from clerestories. Across the mall, on top of the other plinth, is the Tyree function room, similar in many ways, but only one storey high, over the (as yet unused -and unnamed) steeply raked main music space. Across the mall, under Leighton Hall is the much less steep Ritchie theatre.

It is not too difficult to arrange such big spaces above each other in a dignified way. The really clever parts of the parti are concerned with relating them ingeniously. The slopes of the volumes inside the plinth run at right angles to the natural fall of the site. This allows the spaces to be reached from bridges over the mall between the two parts of the plinth. The main bridge is about the height of the new academic square that has been made at the upper level of the site.

Approaching down the mall from the west, you see the splendidly dramatic glass roof of the Scientia, supported on mastor-tree like columns beautifully made of turned and laminated jarrah. Sunlight is modified by metal louvres, and the whole floats delicately over the central gulch. Climbing the formal stairs under the bridge, you come to the new square, and the alley of poplars that will, when grown, partly mask the un-Civils building, and emphasize the mall and its relationship to the new square.

At this level, coming from the west, you have to turn round to enter the Leighton, which can throw itself open on suitable days through an array of doors. Getting to the southern part of the complex at this level is more complicated, because the Civils building prevented direct access, so there is a special entrance in a return of the plinth that leads through a glass wall to the approach to the main bridge. The bridge platform then becomes a major element in the interaction of the plan. Another bank of doors to the south side of the Leighton opens onto the platform which suddenly becomes a proper volume, enclosed by glass roof and walls and faces the bar and the (as yet unused) entrances to the concert hall. Above, in the glass box, is the rigging of the university flagship (or the branches of the Grove of Academe). On one side is the calm square and poplar grove, on the other is the busy mall over which you hover, It is a truly memorable, democratic and generous academic space and deserves its role as the centre of the university.

RELATED ARTICLE: Architect

MGT Architects, Sydney

Project team

Richard Francis-Jones, Jeff Morehan, Romaldo Giurgola. Angelo Korsanos, Conrad Johnston, Rhiannon Morgan, Richard Thorp, Jason Trisley, Douglas Brooks, Ninotschka Titchkosky

Structural and civil consultant

Taylor Thomson & Whitting

Landscape architect

Context Landscaping Design