Project overview

EZONE UWA Student Hub provides:

• students with an unparalleled, engineering education experience
• new teaching and interactive learning models
• researchers with support to pursue solutions to the world's greatest challenges
• interdisciplinary collaboration opportunities between engineering and other subject areas

In partnership with the project team, Campus Management undertook extensive spatial planning and engagement with the University stakeholders, including the Centre for Education Futures, to ensure EZONE UWA Student Hub delivered a vibrant, innovative campus space with purpose-built yet flexible use facilities, to integrate research, education and industry engagement.

Utilising existing infrastructure – re-purposing and re-invigorating buildings – together with constructing new facilities has supported UWA’s capacity to enrich the student experience, encourage greater collaboration and provide a world-class innovation hub.

Design

The University appointed architects, Hassell to assist with the development of a masterplan for EZONE UWA, recognising the precinct would form an integral part of the UWA campus.

The design of the internal spaces have delivered the latest, flexible, fit for purpose laboratories, teaching and learning spaces for students, staff, the University and the wider community.

The design also integrates a large social hub in the form of large steps that rise up through the three storey void of the building. These learning steps offer spaces for quiet reflection and organised lectures. This space forms a social heart for the building and defines and characterises a place of connectedness and collaboration.

Key considerations guiding the Masterplan

Connecting the campus – creating an engineering zone welcoming students, staff and visitors, enhancing connections between the Faculty and the campus, and the campus and the city, a place where industry, community and alumni can engage and share knowledge.

Street frontage – presenting the new EZONE UWA building to Fairway offers a front door to the Faculty of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences. Enhancing the existing entrance from Fairway into the University and reinforcing the idea of a welcoming western entry to campus, separating service vehicles from pedestrians.

Inside-out, outside-in – reinforcing the strong campus connection to landscape by blurring edges between the inside and out, and exploring the integration of landscaping elements within the building.

Inspired learning – inspiring and promoting those that encounter EZONE UWA. The act of learning, researching or teaching, or the act of knowledge transfer, being enhanced by the environment in which it is conducted.

Showcasing laboratories – locating flexible teaching laboratories and specialist laboratories throughout the buildings to promote the showcasing of experiments and significant research equipment.

Circulation – focusing horizontal and vertical circulation and connections through the central linking foyer/atrium space between the buildings, heightening activation of communal spaces and promoting strong visual connectivity.

Orientation – maximising solar control by orienting the mass of the building lengthways east-west on the campus.

Artist impressions

Images courtesy of Hassell Architects

EZONE Student Hub construction site - Mathematics building (link 223)