RMIT's new Design Hub is currently well on its way in the building process. Situated at the old Carlton United Brewery site, the new Design Hub, which is expected to be completed by the end of the year, is going to be the new building for RMIT research and post-graduate students of all design disciplines.
The Design Hub, by Sean Godsell together with Peddle Thorpe Architects, is incredibly interesting in how it incorporates sustainable technologies. A key design element is found in the facade, also known as the 'second skin', which is comprised of a lattice of 16,000 sand-blasted glass cells which act as photovoltaic solar power collectors, tracking the sun's movement to help shade and power the building. The building will also integrate a subfloor air distribution system, rain water harvesting, monitoring and display of live energy consumption, as well as several other sustainable technologies.
The interior will all be open-plan, with research warehouse spaces, meeting spaces, exhibition spaces, a lecture theatre and the like all coming together to form and encourage an open learning environment. RMIT Vice Chancellor, Professor Margaret Gardner stated in the article, "Work to begin on RMIT Design Hub," that the Design hub will be a "centre for collaboration". Part of the open-plan design are the kits of moveable furniture that can be arranged differently depending on the particular needs of the user. This, however, raises some questions on privacy. With the interior arrangement being all open-plan, is this sufficient for students to carry out their research? While the planning is based around the idea of encouraging a friendly, open environment, sometimes there is a need for private areas where personal study can be done, or even where groups can discuss ideas without interrupting others.
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| North Elevation |
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| West Elevation |
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| in progress... |
Images courtesy of Sean Godsell Architects & www.greencities.org.au
While the Design Hub is going to be used primarily by research and post-graduate students, do you think it is going to be a issue that there are no enclosed class rooms for private group consultation or personal study? Share your opinion.
Nice review.
ReplyDeleteYour article does pose a lot of questions about "privacy" though this is a public building.
All this ESD technology is screaming maintenance; an issue that RMIT is notoriously famous for...
A similar model regarding open planning for DSC context can be seen in building 88 and I dont think it has so much issues around it.
ReplyDeleteGranted, b88 has studio spaces which are more permanent in nature, but they're still quite temporal in a sense that they are just semi permanent structures to partition spaces.
The fact that theres portable meeting spaces and moveable screens should be sufficient to mould the required program in a given length of time.
Good review on the building though xD