ASPECT and the Australian campus

The institution of the university occupies a large cultural and physical presence in Australian cities. Here, we reflect on how that role has grown and changed, and the part ASPECT Studios has played in that transformation.

Over the past few decades, there has been an almost surreal reconfiguration of Australian university campuses. The level of investment in enlarging, rebuilding, updating and rearranging not only the campus, but the way it interfaces with the city, is hard to overstate.

Where once the Australian campus was built as a kind of isolated, self-contained space, designed for a single purpose – today’s “sticky” campuses are miniature cities in their own right: places where people live, work and play. They are also hyper-connective entities that are tightly interlaced with the surrounding urban fabric.

ASPECT Studios has been intimately involved in this reimagining, working on projects across the country, at all scales. There is no monolithic, defining approach for ASPECT. Instead, our work demonstrates an evolving understanding not only of what the campus is, but also the different “characters” that a campus can embody.

Our work is instead defined by our ongoing collaborations with likeminded university partners and architects, who are also deeply engaged with learning environments and the nature of ideas in our cities – and how these are presented in knowledge institutions.

ASPECT began its journey in education with Monash University in Melbourne, the University of Technology Sydney and more recently Australian National University in Canberra. At Monash, ASPECT helped to engineer the large-scale transformation of the Clayton campus, with a master plan led by MGS Architects and co-authored by ASPECT that has informed subsequent public realm projects. For UTS, ASPECT was involved in the redevelopment of its inner-city Ultimo campus, which aimed to project a new image for the university.

These relationships have persisted into the present day, with changing cultural and political inclinations meaning that ASPECT has focused on more precise, student-focused projects within university campuses. There is still, however, a desire to reconfigure the “type” of campus – in terms of setting, relationship to landscape and Country, and as platform for learning and teaching.

In Perth, for instance, Murdoch University is building upon its identity as a “bush campus”, with the development of Boola Katijin, which embodies an intimate relationship with the surrounding landscape. Elsewhere, Edith Cowan University is embarking on a major project to expand its presence in the CBD, creating Perth’s first “city campus” infusing the city centre with over 10,000 students and staff, contributing a new social dynamic to energise the city through learning, arts, performance (WAAPA), emerging technology and industry engagement.

With the recent publication of Campus, a comprehensive survey of the Australian university campus edited by Andrew Saniga and Robert Freestone that outlines these core spatial typologies, we thought it was a choice moment to reflect on the work that ASPECT has been involved in over the last few years.

The design tussles with the idea of the campus as a distinct space. “It’s not a separate education precinct,” Burnuetz said. “Part of that was the result of bringing in residential into the inner heart of the campus, positioning it next to cafes and events spaces and places to learn – and, of course, the university buildings themselves.”

The heart of the project is the reworked Central Courtyard, a major public space that provides an alternative vision of what the campus can be – something closer to nature and the community. The courtyard has been thoughtfully assembled to act as the natural staging ground for all manner of activities. The shift in focus represented here isn’t limited to remote learning – it reflects an attention to wellbeing, an emphasis on ecological guardianship, and an awareness that a move toward more fluid work practices requires spaces that collapse boundaries between uses.

The existing campus already had an impressive, bush-oriented design pedigree, which was defined by a collection of modernist and brutalist buildings arranged in a rolling, picturesque landscape. That original vision had become murky in the decades since its initial conception, and part of ASPECT’s response was to emphasise what was already there. A careful arrangement of courtyards, trees and other points of interest form a diagrid that echoes the original plan for the campus laid out in the 1960s by architect-planner Wally Abraham.

The project embraces Marion’s original philosophy by reinforcing the significance of Banksia Court as a defining open space within the campus. Banksia court is framed along its eastern edge by the alignment of the new building and a new promenade that connects into the heart of the campus. The buildings teaching spaces are physically and visually stitched into the surrounding landscape allowing informal learning, recreation, and leisure to spill out and activate the length of the building.

Produced by a unique collaborative design team that included multiple architects led by Lyons, the landscape design works in every dimension to reinforce the design objectives of the building, by creating a sense of place using native species. A new pedestrian spine was created, with a north-south promenade that forges a new gateway to the campus, while unabashedly making the surrounding bushland the defining aesthetic feature.

By designing in relation to the existing heritage and modernists buildings and landscapes that flank the precinct, the history of the university is sharpened and brought into focus. The result is a vibrant centre of activity that locates student services and activities closer to the heart of the campus, and to primary transport links.

“This is really a project about working with our collaborators to expand thinking – both about education and about what the campus itself can be,” said Kirsten Bauer, Director of ASPECT Studios.

ASPECT Studios led the design of the public realm and landscape with GLAS Urban landscape architects, in collaboration with the architectural team, university stakeholders and its First Nations community. The First Nations Engagement strategy was produced through consultation with over 130 stakeholders, with the goal of ensuring that the project stimulated cultural understanding between non-Indigenous and First Nations people. This was conceptually realised in the dual ideas of the “Welcome Terrain” and “Water Story”.

The first involved the removal of decking and other artificial surfaces, allowing for the creation of a wide, “on-ground” pathway hewn from local stone. The “Water Story” involved the reconstruction of the lost Bouverie Creek that once ran across the site, giving physical form to eel migration paths. In both instances, these concepts involved the removal of colonial obstructions, and the unearthing of Indigenous narratives and culture.