Designing for a sustainable future
Demonstrating leadership in sustainability on a global scale, Murdoch University's flagship academic building - Building 360 Boola Katitjin, is the first large-scale mass engineered timber building in Western Australia. Achieving a 6 Star Green Star design and As-Built v1.3 rating, the development sets the benchmark for eco-friendly innovation within the built environment through considered design and material selection while supporting a better learning environment for students.
Visionary transformation
Designed by Lyons Architects in collaboration with local studios Officer Woods, The Fulcrum Agency, Silver Thomas Hanley and Aspect Studios, the project focused on consolidating the academic campus centre, to accommodate the future needs of teaching, education and research.
The design focuses on a creative warehouse model that offers a highly flexible and adaptable core, transforming how learning is carried out. A diverse range of learning spaces support a variety of collaborative, tech-enabled, experimental and digital immersive learning.
Honoured at the 2023 National Architecture Awards and having received a Daryl Jackson Award for Educational Architecture and the National Award for Sustainable Architecture, Boola Katitjin, which means "many facets and many levels of learning" in Noongar language, is a design achievement to aspire to.
Design cohesion
To ensure design cohesion, the character of the campus was maintained by responding to existing regional modernist architecture, echoing its form, shape and material. Laminated timber beams and columns together with cross-laminated timber floor panels use plantation-grown timber as a replacement for traditional concrete and steel structure for the majority of the building. With its lower carbon footprint and increased opportunities for natural ventilation, the timber structure contributes to the environmental sustainability of the building while providing a flexible, future-proof design.
Form + function
With a key focus on sustainable design, keeping the academic building neat and tidy while reducing landfill waste, was paramount. To provide effective waste management, a series of Bondi double bins with a large capacity of 240L was specified by Multiplex to provide a dual housing, separating recyclable materials from general waste.
While functionality and durability is at its core, Bondi seamlessly integrates with the modern building aesthetics that features timber throughout. Meticulously designed and crafted by Botton + Gardiner, Bondi features Blackbutt hardwood battens encapsulated by a compact, powder-coated frame in Silver Palladium, that complements the indoor and outdoor spaces in which it sits.
Further enhancing the eco-credentials, Blackbutt is sourced from sustainable forests certified by the Program for the Endorsement of Forest Certification (PEFC), the world’s largest forestry certification system.
