Infinity Centre by McBride Charles Ryan and Billard Leece Partnership’s student accommodation building at La Trobe University, Wodonga were named joint Overall Winners in the 2012 Think Brick Awards announced in Sydney last night.

They were also joint winners in the Commercial Category.

Judges said; “Great education buildings, like the Infinity Centre have the potential to shape future generations by inspiring students to think about the built environment. Here a striking brick façade undulates in both plan and elevation with a hovering mess that defies gravity”.

Commenting on the student accommodation building at La Trobe University, judges it was “simultanseously ethereal and weighty, hard and soft. The formal presence of the buildings is featured into the landscape through textures and rones of the brickwork”.

The Infinity Centre

The Infinity Centre, the new campus for senior secondary school students, is derived from the initial idea that the library, a learning hub, is central to the school. We also wanted a building that offered protection from a windswept site and signified the merging of two schools, Penleigh Presbyterian Ladies' College and Essendon Grammar School for boys. The idea of infinite learning became the mantra. Radiating out from the library, along the length of the form, are specialist precincts and a variety of learning spaces. Each wing then returns to link up, forming cloisters and the resulting plan of an infinity symbol. Being structured around two protected courtyards enhances the learning spaces access to light, ventilation and view.

This variety of spaces and volumes, not dissimilar to a walled citadel with its gardens and ceremonial arches, is encased within a unifying skin. The outer wall of the building is clad with glazed bricks, a material that offers protection, beauty and gravitas. The material's weight imbues the impressive form with substance and a sense of permanence. The banded brickwork pattern aids in reading the shape of the building, and adds complexity and delight as the sun catches the silver and gloss.

 

The La Trobe University Wodonga

Photography: Tony Miller.

The La Trobe University Wodonga campus student accommodation provides 28 beds in a pair of two storey buildings set within a new greenfield student accommodation precinct. The site provides an idyllic pastoral backdrop with rolling hills, expansive grasslands and aged gum trees. The building materials and colour palette reflects the rural context.

The slimline bricks were selected to play upon the scale of the building and accentuate the linearity of the site and the landscape. The blend of grey, brown and white toned and textured bricks were selected to reflect the rural context and surrounding landscape. The architects and builders worked together to enable a high level of resolution and craftsmanship with the distinctive brick façade providing a striking and timeless identity for the project.

Brick Used

Boral 50mm Slimline (30% La Mesa/30%Labassa/30% Grey Nuance)

Euroa 50mm Glazed Slimline (3.3% Vanilla / 3.3% Soundwind / 3.3% Silver Black)