 | THE RISE AND RISE OF UNSW The built environment at UNSW has undergone remarkable changes over the last
decade. Andrew Nimmo outlines the process and effects.
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University Mall, the Red Centre by
MGT Architects is to the left, and the Robert
Webster extension by Bligh Voller Nield to the
right. Photographs John Gollings.
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The quadrangle site in 1980.
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The
commerce quadrangle in 1967. Photograph Max
Dupain.
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Looking down University Mall from Scientia.
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The Robert Webster Building
refurbished by Bligh Voller Nield.
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Scientia by MGT Architects.
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View of the Red Centre by MGT.
Photographs John Gollings.
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View of the Red Centre by MGT.
Photographs John Gollings.
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Computer Science and Engineering
Building refurbishment by Bates Smart.
Photograph Sharrin Rees.
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Hassell’s
extension to NIDA, showing the proposed
frontage onto Anzac Parade.
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Sydney University has Blacket and Wilkinson. It has old school pretensions and
traditions – with residential colleges that are more Oxford than Oxford, and quadrangles
that paint a romantic tableau of studied contemplation and academic rigour. In the
oldest part of the campus an idyllic vision fulfils expectations of what it is to be a great
campus. This could also be said of the University of Queensland and Melbourne
University – both of which also contain fine Gothic Revival secular buildings built around
a quadrangle.
The University of New South Wales, on the other hand, has always been the
austerity campus, not so much for the quality of its buildings but for more the quality of
its public realm. By 1987, The Australian felt compelled to write, “The University of New
South Wales is generally agreed to have Australia’s ugliest campus.” Over the past
twelve years, however, that has all changed, with the campus undergoing an
extraordinary transformation in the physical environment through a building program
probably unrivalled on Australian campuses.
UNSW is a much smaller campus than Sydney University, built over a shorter time
frame. It commenced in the late forties with stripped-down postwar buildings of an
almost puritanical quality – buildings like the Main Building (1955 – now affectionately
known as the Old Main Building) and the Dalton Building (1957). During the sixties and
seventies building boom, late modernism mixed with off-form brutalism and late nuts-n-
berries Sydney School produced a number of significant buildings, including the
Government Architect’s Sulman Medal winning Goldstein College (1964), but also a
great number of fairly ordinary ones by Fowell, Mansfield, Jarvis and Maclurcan.
The sixties also saw the beginnings of planned space, with the Main Entry and
Walkway edged by the Subiaco columns (now University Mall), and a series of
courtyards planned alongside new buildings in the upper campus. But it was not until
the late eighties that there was a serious attempt to realise a coherent masterplan. Until
then buildings were mostly isolated in a sea of tarmac and car parks, as if waiting to be
towed to another site. The space between the buildings was largely leftover space. It was, in many respects, a microcosm of postwar town planning principles – a fairly
desperate place that gave pre-eminence to the movement and parking of vehicles.
A protest meeting in February 1987 pushed for major improvements to the
physical environment of the campus, and a delegation approached the then chancellor,
Justice Gordon Samuels, who set up a Campus Design Advisory Group. The group
developed a number of campus principles which, in turn, formed the basis of the future
Campus Development Strategy prepared by David Chesterman of Jackson Teece
Chesterman Willis. The principles recommended that future buildings be sited to
enhance opportunities for north-facing landscaped courtyards, that cars be removed
from the campus centre, that the axial vista from Anzac Parade be properly developed,
and that a pedestrian network be established thoughout the campus to link the
landscaped open spaces. Support for changes came from the highest level, including
deputy chancellor Jessica Milner-Davis and vice-chancellor Professor Michael Birt.
Professor Paul Reid of the School of Architecture recalls presenting a sketch for a
large quadrangle space – instead of the large block building that was proposed for the
particular site – at one of the advisory group meetings. The large flat space was a
revelation to the vice-chancellor. The space was developed as the Quadrangle Building
and completed in the mid 1990s by Peddle Thorp and Walker. While the resultant
building employs some rather obvious and heavy-handed postmodern devices, it
signalled a major change in the way that external spaces might be treated.
To prepare the development strategy, Chesterman assembled a diverse team that
included professionals beyond the obvious design and planning disciplines. The
preparation of the plan was preceded by workshops, ensuring that various stakeholders
became involved and committed to the process of transformation. The workshops did
not focus just on the physical environment, but looked at the broader aspects of what
kind of campus it was to be and how it meshed into the regional locality.
By the time the current vice-chancellor, John Niland, arrived in 1992, the Campus
Development Strategy was in place and endorsed by the University Council. It was up to Niland to implement the Chesterman plan, which he has with an extraordinary vigour.
More than any other, Niland seems to understand that a great university requires a
great campus – and that to attract the very best students and corporate sponsors you
need to be a great university. As the chair of the Campus Development Committee,
which includes Glenn Murcutt, David Chesterman and Professor Paul Reid, he has
overseen all aspects of urban quality and building design. The debate within the
committee is very open and at times like a design forum – where robust discussions
between the presenting designers and committee are encouraged.
The university now employs a rigorous selection process for architects. This has
included limited design competitions and has meant that many of Sydney’s leading
design firms are building or have built on the campus over the last ten years. The
Chesterman masterplan continues to evolve; it was reviewed in 1997, and has entered
Phase II of its implementation. The masterplan itself remains deceptively simple, and
that, in part, is its great strength and success. The original principles have remained in
place and are being implemented true to their intentions under the guidance of facilities
manager Graham Parry.
Perhaps what distinguishes UNSW from, say, the University of Sydney, which
seems to have lost its way in recent years with regard to forward planning of its built
environment, is that the desire for change has been supported and understood from the
top down. While the framework for change was set up prior to Niland and by many
different people, without the active support from Niland as the vice-chancellor, it is hard
to imagine it proceeding with quite the same ardour.
The great improvements to the physical campus have, of course, come with a
substantial financial outlay. At its most basic level, value judgements have had to be
made where investment in the physical environment can literally mean less to spend on
better academic resources (this has, at times, led to some hostility between Niland and
the University Council). This is especially evident with the completion of The Scientia in
1999 by MGT Architects. As the ceremonial centrepiece of the campus, and the personal vision of Niland, this is a building with a budget that cannot be justified
through function alone. But to deny the UNSW this building would be like denying the
University of Sydney its Great Hall. It is probably just the kind of building that should
have been built back in the 1950s or 60s, when the campus was young and forming.
The 1990s have been dominated by a series of different architects – as though
the campus has consciously gone out to buy at least one building of each name
architect. Some of the most recent buildings are among the most interesting, with the
calming elegance of the Webster extension by BVN, the robust sophistication of the Red
Centre by MGT, and of course the symbolic dominance of The Scientia. Together these
three projects, which front the University Mall, well deserved the Lloyd Rees Award for
Urban Design from the RAIA last year. Most recently completed is the Computer
Science and Engineering Building refurbishment by Bates Smart, with its lightweight
addition of steel and glass with a subtly shifting metal louvre screen. Currently under
construction is Hassell’s extension to NIDA, which will give the UNSW a street frontage
to Anzac Parade that in the past has always been avoided.
While the campus now has a number of new landmark buildings by name
architects, the buildings do not operate as objects, but work as an ensemble, defining
the edges and collectively making the spaces. This is the strength of the master plan,
where the emphasis remains on the spaces, not the buildings. The new spaces are
quite consciously designed to have different qualities. The University Mall is strongly
axial and classical and not really a place to linger; the Quadrangle remembers the
traditional town square, as though ready for a daily market; the Village Green is an
active recreational reserve; and scattered along the covered pedestrian access system,
known as the University Walk, is a network of smaller scale landscaped courtyards that
respond directly to adjacent buildings and their uses. With Niland leaving next year, the
big question will be whether his successor continues to implement Phase II of the
masterplan with the same passion and commitment.
Andrew Nimmo is an architectural writer and a director of Lahz Nimmo Architects.
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