In 1999, the UTAS School of Architecture and Design in Launceston became
Tasmania’s only option for tertiary architectural education with the
disestablishment of a sibling school in Hobart in the south of the island and
amalgamation and relocation of effort to the northern city. That change was
not supported by the architectural profession in Tasmania. Rather, it was
deemed a political move to inject life into a rather conservative campus at the
Launceston suburb of Newnham and benefit a marginal electorate and not a
The Newnham campus is relatively small and has only a limited number of
courses, most of which have little relevance to architecture. Arguably,
architecture students benefit from being in urban locations with highly active
planning, development and construction industries, and compared to the
larger capital of Hobart, Launceston was seen as less likely to provide this
context. Furthermore, approximately 80 per cent of Tasmanian architectural
practices are located in the south and arguably the mutually beneficial
relationship between the university and the profession was considered not as
easy in Launceston.
In spite of such apparent locational disadvantage, under the headship of
Professor Roger Fay the School of Architecture and Design developed an
excellent reputation, particularly for its teaching of environmentally
sustainable design and also its ‘learning by making’ program. In the latter,
students use a well‐equipped workshop to build public furniture and small
buildings for community projects as well as architectural models for their
design projects. Another successful arm of the school has been the Timber
Research Unit (now called Centre for Sustainability and Wood or CSAW)
which receives funding from the timber industry. The School has one of the
university’s highest ratios of international students to local students and this
has had an impact on increasing student numbers in the School. In such light,
according to Professor Fay, the school became the flagship of the Newnham
campus as a result of its growing enrolments, vibrancy, visible activity and
community projects.
By the mid‐2000s, with growing enrolments the school at Newnham had a
shortage of space and staff considered that they were operating under a
number of other limitations. School operations had spread into adjacent
buildings; there was no studio culture as the studios were used for other
activities; the workshop was separated from the studios; and the Timber
looking into accommodation options for the school and preparing an
architectural brief outlining spatial requirements as the basis for a feasibility
study. Expressions of interest to carry out the feasibility study were
requested from a number of Tasmanian and Victorian architects with
experience in environmentally sustainable design. It was considered
important by staff in the school that consultants reflect their values with
regard to such design and that the new accommodation be an exemplar of it.
Victorian architects, SBE (the initials standing for ‘sustainable built
environments’) and Six Degrees were selected to carry out the feasibility
study. Three options for new accommodation were investigated in the
feasibility study: renovation of the existing accommodation at Newnham, a
new building on a greenfield site on the Newnham campus and a move to
Inveresk to occupy a retrofitted railway building. According to Professor
Fay, the Inveresk option was a late inclusion to the feasibility study and was
not investigated to the same level of detail as the other options.
As with all UTAS building projects, the feasibility study and design process
were directed by the University’s Project User Group (PUG), which included
the Head and staff members from the School, a senior academic external to
the school and the project manager from AMS. This group was formed at the
beginning of the feasibility study and disbanded once the construction
contract had been let.
The feasibility study identified as the preferred option the greenfield site at
Newnham. Although the most expensive, it would provide a building
tailored to needs with room for expansion. The major disadvantages of this
option were the cost and the suburban location of the campus which staff
considered inappropriate for a progressive architecture school with an
The Inveresk option was the second preference in the feasibility study. It had
the advantages of being reasonably affordable; would make use of a
distinctive heritage building; would be near the city centre; and would be
collocated with the School of Visual and Performing Arts and the Queen
Victoria Museum and Art Gallery. This position was supported by state and
local government as the Inveresk site was being developed as a cultural and
sporting precinct for the city. The buildings at Inveresk are owned by the
Launceston City Council and leased from them by the university.
Renovating the existing building on the Newnham campus was the least
preferred option in the feasibility study. It would be a complicated process
requiring staff, students and operations to decant for one year; thereafter,
there would still be no scope for expansion. This option was supported by
neither AMS nor the School.
Eng Seow, the AMS project manager, reported to the PUG that the school
had a strong preference for the Inveresk option. Conceptually the move from
a suburb deemed rather drab to an inner city cultural precinct provided an
appropriate setting for architecture. The recycling of an old diesel train
workshop supported the school’s vision of sustainability, and the industrial
aesthetic of the building was deemed ideal for a school with a focus on
’learning by making’.
The school’s preference would likely have been supported by the university’s
new Vice Chancellor, Professor Daryl le Grew, an architect who was an
advocate of city based campuses and whose legacy includes a number of
major capital works projects in the city centre of Hobart, including Medical
Sciences 1 and 2 and the Institute of Marine and Antarctic Studies.
Once it was decided to proceed with the Inveresk option, the same
architectural team, SBE with Six Degrees, was engaged to continue with the
charette led by the architects and involving all staff from the school as well as
interested students. The vision and preliminary design ideas for the school
were developed in a collaborative manner at the charette. The stated aims for
the school were to make visible sustainability and ‘learning by making’;
facilitate active studios; and create a building where vibrant activity was
visible through visual connections between the spaces. The output from the
charette was a sketch design report prepared by the architects which
proposed three schemes.
From the perspective of AMS, the school and the architects, a sound working
relationship typified the design development; it was described by staff in
AMS as an easy relationship with a client group which knew what it wanted
and which was consulted frequently by the architects. On that basis, the
focus of the AMS was generally on cost and time, while the functional issues,
design details and finishes were competently dealt with by the school. From
the school’s perspective, agreement characterised its relationship with the
architects and between the two architectural practices forming the design
team. The design process was more a partnership between the architects and
the staff and students of the school than the usual architect‐client
relationship.