85-year-old Los Angeles based, world renowned architect Frank Gehry boasts an impressive list of accomplishments including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in L.A, the Dancing house in Prague and 8 Spruce Street in Manhattan, just moments away from New York City Hall; and now works have completed on his first building in Australia, the Dr Chau Chak Wing Building.
The curved, sandy brick exterior of the new business building for the University of Technology brings to mind a crumpled paper bag. An expensive crumpled paper bag I should say. The unique nature of the design meant that each of the 320 000 bricks were not only custom designed pertinent to their particular place in the building, but hand-laid too. It’s nothing short of a miracle that this building has been completed on time.
In the popular theme of incorporating the old with the new, the past with the present, Gehry’s newest building juxtaposes a sandy coloured brick façade – on behalf of the sandstone heritage in the area – against the glass panels that make up the western wall reflecting the building’s surroundings. The implausibly protruding windows on the soft, curved brick façade, work in conjunction together to play to the modern, to the now.
In line with the original purpose of the building, the $180 million structure will cater to some 2,390 students and teachers featuring an assortment of the latest and greatest learning environments. Housing no less than 10 graduate seminar rooms with 40 seats a pop, 2 oval classrooms each seating 60, one bowl classroom for 120 students and 4 flat floored computer labs catering for 40, the ambition of Gehry is evident. A reoccurring theme throughout is the idea of portable seating; chair and table duos that can fold up and move around easily making way for group work, discussions and collaborative efforts. So too open-plan workspaces are also planned for the staff in addition to an array of communal spaces for meetings ranging in formality. With so much to offer the building will also be available for external business events.
Gehry’s structure has been named after Dr Chau Chak, the Australian-Chinese philanthropist who donated $20 million to the cause as well as a further $5 million to support Australian-Chinese scholarships. The building is set to open for the first Semester of 2015.
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