Swinburne Advanced Manufacturing and Design Centre

WilkinsonEyre working together with Jacobs (formerly SKM) have designed the Advanced Manufacturing & Design Centre (AMDC) for Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Located on the University’s Hawthorn Campus, the building will be a centre of excellence in manufacturing innovation and collaborative learning that embraces state-of-the-art design to reflect Swinburne University’s reputation as a leading research institute.

The AMDC will provide facilities where advanced manufacturing facilities will be made available for use by industry partners as well as university students and researchers, with the aim of fostering strong links between academia and industry. The building also contains a dedicated office suite for industry engagement; a range of laboratories, workshops and office accommodation, a student “hub” space and a 350 seat auditorium.

Additional space to let to commercial enterprise was a key part of the University’s brief to link research and commercial applications, and extra capacity has been designed into the building and its structure and services to accommodate the as-yet-unknown power and space requirements of large pieces of equipment.

The ADMC comprises a six-storey block floating above a retained Victorian façade at street level. Themes of transparency and openness, both visual and physical, have informed the architectural design and the façade is intended to generate interest by expressing the use and key functional spaces of the building: the lecture theatre, sky lobby, and upper floor meeting room and office suite are all boldly expressed together with sky gardens located in the upper portions of the building.

The glass of the building’s façade is shaded by sculpted vertical fins, inspired by engine turbine blades. These are modeled to achieve optimum solar shading, while achieving transparency and allowing views and natural light into the building. The undulation of the fins gives an ethereal three-dimensional shape to the outer skin of the building.

Three full height atria bring daylight into the building and act as chimneys, channelling warm, stale air out of the building as part of the natural ventilation strategy. The concrete frame of the structure is exposed to provide thermal mass heat absorption and the building makes use of radiant cooling systems, coupled with an under-floor air distribution system. A trigeneration plant located on the roof supplies heating, cooling and electricity to the building, helping the ADMC achieve a Green Star rating of 5.