Swanston Academic Building, RMIT University Australia, Architect, Education Design
Swanston Academic Building, Melbourne
RMIT University Development, Victoria, Australia – design by Lyons, Architects
30 Jan 2018 post updated with larger photos ; 26 Nov 2012
Swanston Academic Building
Location: Corner Swanston & A?Beckett Streets, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Architect: Lyons
RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, is a unique city campus, embedded deeply into the downtown grid of a major city of 5 million people.

photograph : John Gollings
This new building, called the Swanston Academic Building, is an idea about building a vertical campus and drawing the diversity of the city deeply in to the design conception. As student space is not available like a green campus, the project proposes a vertical ?stack? of informal ?open? student spaces, each connected to a central circulation system of escalators and stairs.
image : Diana Snape
This creates a three-dimensional armature of student infrastructure within the building, and is also used as a means of providing a sustainable natural ventilation system within this network of spaces.

images : John Gollings
These student spaces are named ?portals? as a hybrid of the physical gateway, and the virtual access to knowledge and information. Each is a double height space, and externally they appear as large ?holes? in the facade, each with a distinctive profile based on editing the surrounding cityscape.

photo :...