ABEDIAN SCHOOL OF ARCHITECTURE BY CRAB STUDIO

The Abedian School of Architecture is located on the campus designed in the 1980s by Arata Isozaki.

It forms part of the Faculty of Architecture and Sustainable Design. Winning the competition in January 2011, CRAB was awarded the contract and the building is on Fast Track.

Again, Cook and Robotham’s long experience as teachers of architecture and their regular working knowledge of several including the Bartlett, AA, Harvard, SCI-ARC, Columbia, Frankfurt and UCLA enables them to incorporate a response to many anecdotal criteria as well as constructional and climatic objectives.

The building is a long, airy loft on two to three levels articulated by a series of ‘scoops’: defining structure-enclosures that can be used for casual meetings and ‘crit’ sessions.

These line the central street that gently rises up the hilltop site. Advantage is taken of the east-west axis to clarify a very climate-controlled development of the north and south skins of the building.

The diagram of the building is straightforward enough – a gently ramping internal street runs the length and height of the envelope, with studio spaces over two levels on one side and three levels of offices and service functions on the other.

The concept of the building aims to foster collaboration at all levels from undergraduates to postgraduates where architectural students and academics can learn, create and exhibit in an open plan studio environment.

This space undulates in section, with bridges crossing overhead and stairs connecting up and around. The roof is a flat, lily-pad-like structure that rests on an array of slender columns, creating a colonnade around the perimeter. At the entrance, the form cantilevers forward like a protruding nose – a classic Cook motif – to welcome us.

As befits a hot and sometimes sticky climate, the building is airy and folds over upon itself in a series of fan-like roofs and slits. The unique design of the building provides an exceptional learning experience.

The Abedian School of Architecture is CRAB’s second University building. As with their other work, the sociology of small, intimate groups within institutions, the value of casual overlay, the importance of the non-curricula moments – as well as a ‘sense of theatre’ runs through the project.

Location: Queensland, Australia 

Architects: CRAB studio 
Project Team: Peter Cook and Gavin Robotham, Mark Bagguley, Jenna Al-Ali, Ting-Na Chen, Lorene Faure, Yang Yu, Tim Culverhouse 
Structural and Environmental Engineers: Arup, Brisbane 
General Contractor and Project Management: ADCO, Gold Coast 
Area: 2.500 m2 
Budget: $ 16,200,000 AUD 
Year: 2013 
Client: Bond University