St Lucia, Brisbane, 2019–2021

This small project is a refurbishment of a floor in the west wing of The University of Queensland’s innocuously named General Purpose South Building at the St Lucia Campus.

The project revitalises an area which was a labyrinth of closed teaching spaces and offices for the University’s Cyber Security Hub in the School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering. While the security-focused nature of the Hub necessitates visual and acoustic privacy, the refurbishment maximises natural light penetration through diaphanous screens and reflective surfaces. The spaces are linked by a spine with a deep blue ceiling that exposes services and imparts legibility to the organisation.

The project is the first stage – a trial in effect – of a now proposed overall refurbishment of the building which has direct views out over the campus’s renowned lakes. This will enable us to explore ways to open up a relatively insular architecture to the lakes, create a new arrival experience and form a series of communities through internal and external spatial arrangements.