South Bank Creative Hub

The complementary themes of innovation and sustainability have been driving factors behind the development of this design, together with the essential concept of functionality. This has resulted in a design that is simultaneously strikingly unique in form, sustainable, and highly functional internally.

Connection with the existing site and its function is retained by minimising the building footprint and maintaining ease of access to the green from existing and proposed paths of travel, and dialogue between the existing building fabric of TAFE and this proposed Creative Hub is developed in the selection of materiality and in the use of sculptural form. The creation of large adaptable spaces acts as a platform for multidisciplinary interactions across the TAFE faculties.

Passive design of lighting and ventilation has been implemented in the orientation of the building to minimise western/eastern faces, in the inclusion of many openable windows that allow the direction of breezes into the building and bring natural light into the building, and in the implementation of an innovative adjustable external skin for shading. The existing functionality of the green has been retained as far as possible in minimising the footprint of the layout, yet the quality of the internal spaces has not been compromised; instead, the layout is very open and spacious, the feeling of which is emphasised through the use of high-level ceilings.

​

During the second stage of this project, namely developing a set of working drawings, the client requested that construction take place in two stages, and that the hemispherical skin be installed after the initial stage of building was complete. Hence, the working drawings included do not show this key design element.