FJMT's UTS Central Academic Hub Opens to the Public in Sydney

Written by Eric Baldwin
Published on August 21, 2019

The University of Technology Sydney has announced that the new UTS Central hub by FJMT has opened to the public in Australia. As the final building in the 10-year campus redevelopment program, the project was made to embody the university's strategy and approach to education while redefining the southern gateway to the city's CBD. UTS Central was designed to set a new standard for contemporary education in Sydney.

The new UTC Central provides a hub for staff, students, industry and the community to create and share knowledge. UTS Vice-Chancellor Professor Attila Brungs said, “Our decade-long campus redevelopment has revolutionized teaching and learning, allowing us to deliver practice-oriented programs to prepare graduates for the workplaces of today and tomorrow. UTS Central is the confident and contemporary embodiment of that educational evolution. It reflects not only our experimentation and innovation over the last five years, but all we’ve learned in the 30 years since UTS was founded and provides the perfect counterpoint to the renowned brutalist tower next door,” Professor Brungs said.

The 17-story building integrates with the original Broadway podium by Lacoste + Stevenson and Daryl Jackson Robin Dyke. Dubbed UTS Central, the project involved the demolition of the former Building 2, with the retention of the basement levels. Key features of the 17-story UTS Central are:

The Reading Room with three-storey atrium, overlooking Alumni Green
The Hive Superlab, a science laboratory able to accommodate up to 270 students working together or in small groups
The UTS Blake Library, occupying levels 7 to 9 and boasting a direct connection to the automated library retrieval system beneath Alumni Green
New premises for the Faculty of Law, including authentic Moot Court and Sir Gerard Brennan trial courts
Research spaces for the Faculty of Engineering and IT
A Research Excellence and Support Hub (RES Hub)
Customized 350-seat collaborative classrooms and a research scholars’ center
Food court and terrace café/restaurant.

The three customised collaborative classrooms housed in UTS Central are unique to UTS. They will support active and collaborative learning at scale, with space for up to 350 students in each of the two largest classrooms. These classrooms have been designed with no obvious ‘front’ of the room, but are instead divided – physically and with technology – into several smaller ‘zones’ for group learning. The Hive Superlab is similarly configured, with 42 pods of six students each, able to work together and solve problems as they would in a workplace.

Professor Shirley Alexander, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Education and Students) said learning at university is changing, which means the nature of the student experience is changing. “Students must master a body of knowledge, develop the skills to work in a team, communicate effectively in a variety of forms, engage in sophisticated problem-solving, and be creative and entrepreneurial,” Professor Alexander said. “The spaces in UTS Central have been designed to support active and collaborative learning activities. Inspired by research, these spaces enable our students to graduate as highly competent professionals.”

UTS Central completes the university’s original City Campus Master Plan, which also includes the aluminium-encased engineering and IT building, the Vicki Sara science building across Alumni Green and the Frank Gehry-designed Dr Chau Chak Wing building.

News via University of Technology Sydney