Higher Expectations: The Architecture of Universities

A swathe of architecturally notable historical buildings built by RMIT and Melbourne University, particularly in recent years, reflect the changing architectural face of Melbourne’s most visible universities, itself an indication of the eternal evolution of student’s needs and the ways in which these needs are satisfied.

Sitting on the corner of Victoria and Russel St on the northern border between the Melbourne CBD and Carlton is the RMIT Graduate School of Business, Building 13, formerly known as the Emily McPherson Building. Named after a generous benefactor who financed the construction of this 1927 edifice, here sits an example of the classical, traditional mode of University architecture. A grand and austere frontage plays host to a collection of areas of learning, connected by a network of approximately human scale, enclosed corridors, the chief function of which was to convey the students to the various rooms of learning. The hierarchy embodied in Building 13 is one of the University, and all related processes, being held above the needs of students or teachers as social beings – perhaps as a consequence of Melbourne’s then sub-1m population and different economic times, the restrained and conservative structure is a good example of what many would have thought a university equated to for decades.

RMIT Design Hub by Sean Godsell Architects

Stroll down to Swanston St, make a left and parade towards La Trobe St and you will before long be confronted – indeed, assaulted – by one of the very most poignant rejections of such aloof, pinched-nose university architecture embodied in the Emily McPherson Building: Edmond and Corrigan’s festooned Building 8. This 1995 building arguably embodies a partial rejection, and overturning, of the strictures of the it’s aged cousin from the 1920s: the students, while still largely subjugated to single planed, partition walled study warrens on most levels, are nevertheless glorified in the decoration, the goading colour palette and wacky post-modern spaces with which the building is riddled. RMIT at this time was a smaller institution, welcoming international students but as yet uncertain of its identity as an architectural product, and the appeal of the building was largely focused on the local students who were sure to rave and cheer at sights of Ned Kelly peering down at passers-by from Hungry Jacks-themed ramparts flanked by V2 rockets.

A different appeal was evident in the 2012 completed project just across Swanston St, the jaw-dropping ARM triumph that is Building 80. The focus of this recent building is not on rabble rousing and generating a heady community spirit amongst largely local students as was the case in Building 8, instead Building 80 is a statement to the world of a University that is steadily becoming famous for being, among other accomplishments, Melbourne’s leading haven of Architectural learning. This building is now a complete inversion of the 1920s Building 13, as the centres of self-directed study and social interaction have come to dominate and dictate the arrangement of study spaces. A triumph of the ARM brand of architecture, amorphous holes gape in the sides of the structure where ambiguous interior/exterior breakout spaces award intrepid students with carefully choreographed views of the surrounding cityscape. No longer does Hungry Jacks need to be plastered quite literally on the side of buildings, these days students get a bird’s eye view of an actual hungry jacks, and a state library to boot!

Exhibition at the RMIT Design Hub.

The building is all about the social and mental requirements of busy students, the facilitation and optimization of study, rather than the conveying of students to places where learning is king. The building looks excellent in render and photograph alike, lighting up the RMIT website with it’s fractured and instantly recognizable – internationally recognizable – façade. Building 80 is a complex and mature structure, but it adheres to the RMIT precedent set by the iconic Building 8 across the road.

Clearly the recently completed Melbourne School of Design, a few tram stops up Swanston St in Melbourne University’s Parkville campus, is trying to achieve the same end through new means. Designed by John Wardle Architects and opened in 2015, the MSD presents students with the same core sensibilities as Building 80: this is as much a haven for the busy, culturally unspecified student as a facility for the mechanical training of hordes of workers that older models of university architecture may have offered up. The MSD is a striking structure, relatively restrained at least in palette compared to Building 80, but at the core of the building – literally – lies a cavern designed specifically for the lifeblood of the university: its students.

The University of Melbourne School of Design by John Wardle Architects

A brief appreciation for the upcoming RMIT New Academic Street project, being designed by MvS Architects, among others, as a thorough and drastic renovation of the aforementioned Building 8 – among other adjacent buildings – neatly summarizes the changing paradigm that has been traced throughout this article. The iconic but planar Edmond and Corrigan building is having its innards recalibrated into multi-storey, intertwined, materially various spaces. The same desire to create a space that can host the multifaceted life of a contemporary university student while also acting as a honeypot for future students, both from home and abroad, will dictate what early peeks and renderings suggest will be a fantastic architectural and new age academic experience.

RMIT’s Emily McPherson Building Redevelopment

How far we have come from the days of yore, not only the heady mid-90s days of Building 8 but what was once the traditionally accepted norm of architectural fare in universities, the staid and mature deployment of the Emily McPherson Building, standing proud above its neighbours on a hilltop beside the Old Melbourne Gaol. International students of ambiguous cultural requirements and a new understanding of the realities of healthy student life have of late come together to create some of the most multifaceted structures in contemporary life.

Words: Richard McPhillips