The PM’s Reading Room : Week 01
01
//
Ryan Robertson
Alvar Aalto’s Seinäjoki Library, Finland
// Academic Centre for Newman College & St Mary’s College
THE PM's READING ROOM // 01
COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION
Alvar Aalto
THE PM's READING ROOM // 01
COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION
Sein채joki Library Alvar Aalto 1:100 physical model
THE PM's READING ROOM // 01
COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION
THE PM's READING ROOM // 01
COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION
“
[This building] is immediately for the students of Newman and St. Mary’s Colleges, then the larger University community, and ultimately the State of Victoria.” Peter Corrigan
THE PM's READING ROOM // 01
The Academic Centre for Newman College and St Mary’s College may well be intended for the entire state, but gaining permission to enter as a member of the public is as difficult as the building’s name is awkward. Edmond and Corrigan Pty Ltd’s Academic Centre was completed in 2004, with the express purpose of being “both a library plus I.T. centre and a tutorial/ meeting facility plus a music practice centre.” The building is inserted between Newman College (Walter Burley Griffen, Augustus A. Fritsch 1915) and St Mary’s college (1966), and abuts the Melbourne University Sports complex.
COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION
“This way out”>>
THE PM's READING ROOM // 01
COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION
The Academic Centre was constructed using large pre-cast concrete wall sheets; no doubt to reduce the cost of the building. The exterior concrete faรงades are painted in Khaki in order to observe the external paints controls of the local Heritage Overlay. The Khaki goes some way to replicating the sandstone hues of the Burley Griffen Newman College building. Relationships are set up between the Academic Centre and the Newman College building through the geometry of the windows and apertures in the facades; the newer building has its square windows rotated 45 degrees in the concrete wall facades, although these types of windows can be seen in previous Corrigan works. Similarly, Corrigan typically celebrates the plainness of service and utility through exposing fire stairs, ducts, pipes and cabling on the exterior of the building. One of Corrigans apparent favorites, the over-sized rainhead features prominently at the top of down piping.
THE PM's READING ROOM // 01
COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION
THE PM's READING ROOM // 01
COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION
Internally, the spatial program of the Academic Centre organizes itself around a central void space which contains the main reading room and stacks on the library on the ground floor. Above the stacks, there are two zigzagging mezzanine levels containing reading space. The jagged mezzanines create a haphazard and slightly chaotic sense to the centre of the building. Flanking the central void are music and choir rehearsal rooms, offices, a lounge and tutorial rooms.
The arrangement of windows is restrained at best, deficient at worst, particularly toward the playing fields on the inside of the campus. The interior verticality is a feature of the building; Conrad Hamann describing it as “reflecting the centres origins in sketches for a clustered tower, and [also allowing] the centre to read as light and hovering, or heavy and bearing down, when viewed from one compositional bay or episode to the next.�
One of the challenges for Edmond & Corrigan in the design of the Academic Centre was to equally address both St Marys and Newman Colleges and unite the separate communities in a singular building. The method used is to strategically expand and contract the building plan in order to speak to the surrounding buildings. There is a certain emphasis on solid and void on the exterior which is continued to the interior, however this is very much a building focused toward the internal programs, rather than the immediate context. The arrangement of windows is restrained at best, deficient at worst, particularly toward the playing fields on the inside of the campus. The interior verticality is a feature of the building; Conrad Hamann describing it as reflecting the centres origins in sketches for a clustered tower, and [also allowing] the centre to read as light and hovering, or heavy and bearing down, when viewed from one compositional bay or episode to the next.
THE PM's READING ROOM // 01
COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION
THE PM's READING ROOM // 01
COMPLEXITY AND CONTRADICTION
END WEEK ONE//