Architects McIldowie Partners have recently completed the “Gateway Building”, the largest single project ever undertaken by Trinity College, Melbourne University’s oldest and most established college. The Gateway Building sits prominently along Melbourne University’s historic circulation artery, the Tin Alley precinct.
The new building forms a dramatic visual connection to the University from the centre of the Trinity College campus. The brief given to McIldowie Partners, was for the Gateway Building to serve as a new interface between Trinity College and the University.
Affiliated with Melbourne University since 1872, Trinity College is home to the prestigious and successful Foundation Studies program – an academic ‘gateway’ that prepares up to 1,800 international students for entry into the University’s undergraduate courses each year.
A clear-glazed atrium cuts through the building to increase natural light and ventilation throughout, creating a functional and visual link between the two street addresses for the site. Internally, a restrained colour palette and faceted timber panelling create calm, inviting, light-filled spaces that reflect warmth and a sense of timelessness.
Extensive computer modelling and a complex structural framework were required to design the timber panelling, used throughout the central atrium and state-of-the-art, 300-seat auditorium. Much of the materials for these spaces were selected for their acoustic integrity; to optimise the sound within and reduce noise-bleed between each of the defined spaces.
The new building serves as the headquarters to the Foundation Studies program, which was previously accommodated in leased buildings across Carlton. Foundation Studies is now served by a 300-seat lecture theatre, 25 tutorial rooms, five drama studios, music rooms and a physics lab, while Trinity College’s extensive cultural collections and archives are housed in a new gallery space and purpose-built displays. Source by Lindy Johnson for McIldowie Partners.
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Architects: McIldowie Partners
Project Directors: Craig Brown and Steven McIldowie
Projects Architects: Tony Di Lorenzo and Stefanie Greiner
Project Team: Ronan Reid, Tom Crocker, John McIldowie, Ellen-Mary Terrill and Emma Ross-Edwards
Head Contractor: Kane Constructions
Project Managers: Aurecon
Structural Engineers: Van Der Meer
Services Engineers: Waterman AHW
Acoustic Engineers: Marshall Day
Building Surveyors: Design Guide
Quantity Surveyors: Trevor Main
Project area: Approx. 6000sqm
Project cost: $28m
Completion date: August 2016
Photographer: Peter Clarke, Courtesy of Lindy Johnson for McIldowie Partners