Macquarie Uni
Number 1 Macquarie Place responds to the challenge to create active, stimulating, environmentally sustainable and flexible workspaces.
The iconic built form is defined as a collection of public objects sitting in space where people may move around, through and between them. The sculptural forms of these buildings are clearly defined to be read as simple and expressive, responding to their context, environment, and function.
The middle of the site connects directly to the main public transport connection nodes and to the central Porte Cochere facility along Herring Road. These varying and crossing links guarantee constant activation to this central space – "the centre".
Each naturally ventilated building lobby entry is orientated to maximise external exposure and way finding through the complex. The 5 metre high lobby spaces are also the base of the central atrium spines, providing a dramatic vertical space which immediately connects the users of the spaces above to the entry sequence. Lobbies have been designed to service as single building user reception spaces and/or multiple tenancies with a concierge service. The front glass lift shafts and the potential for interconnecting stairs within the atrium reinforce the vertical connectability within the workspace.
The strict computer defined geometry of the building plan directly correlates with structural, construction and material modulations and quantities. This in turn creates clean efficient internal workspaces which equal or better traditional rectangular floorplate office efficiencies.
Therefore each building’s response is individual; each similar, but with a distinct character and outlook.
Conventional Working = Random glass rectangular box = Routine processes
= Individual tasks = Isolated work
New Way of Working: = External form responding to function, environment and location = Creative knowledge work = Groups, teams, projects = Interactive working
The planning diagram is made up of overlapping ovals where the buildings are represented in relation to one another, and all possible, logical relations between the groups can be indicated in a single diagram. This diagrammatic representation is known as the VENN diagram.
A central atrium allows for good visual connectivity between levels from bridges, projecting pods and glass balustrade edges. This creates a sense of involvement in the organisation by all staff wherever they are located by the visual linking of floor spaces. This atrium provides the return air path for both the active and passive ventilation systems.
The atrium is capped with a glazed roof light, flooding light down through the building interior, enhancing the quality of the internal spaces. This roof light is further ringed with appropriately orientated photo voltaic arrays, providing a purposeful roof form and solar shield to the buildings.The curtain wall expression, sun shading systems, and solar collectors are used to create the richness and texture of the buildings, removing the need for superfluous attention seeking decoration.
The external brise-soleil shades the otherwise transparent and breathable external glass skin, controlling the quality and quantity of direct light into the workspace – significantly assisting in achieving the required environment/performance indicators.
The design solution investigates realistic environmental systems, both passive and active which have the potential to achieve a 6 greenstar++ environmental rating. Of equal importance, these also add significantly to the quality of the internal and external environments.