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Design Talk With Enfold – End Of Trip

Luxurious finishes coupled with bold contemporary design create a modern look for this Corporate End of Trip facility at 101 Miller Street.

Photos by Photo Republic

END OF TRIP

Sustainability was a key driver for the refurbishment of 101 Miller Street, North Sydney, a premium grade building co-owned by Mirvac Group and TIAA CREF.  Since 2007 this existing building has undergone a considerable upgrade with a holistic approach to the  refurbishment and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.  This iconic building represents an award-winning retro-green asset, now capable of functioning for years to come without excessive energy inputs or substantial demolition waste generation. 

It is becoming standard practice to integrate End of Trip facilities into new and existing buildings. The benefits of having these amenities are two-fold, contributing sustainability credits towards a building’s GBCA Green Star rating and also a major draw card for attracting new tenants.

Gym Lockers

Wellbeing is now rapidly becoming a key focus for companies wishing to optimise their operations, and workspaces are now being designed with this is mind. Recent studies by the National Institute of Wellness Australia found that companies focusing on “wellness” in the workplace saw significant improvements in performance, with a 3.5 increase in creativity and innovation, and an employee retention rate increased 4.5 times over a 12-month period. It’s no surprise then that End of Trip facilities are in such high demand.

The design, management and construction of 101 Miller Street’s new End of Trip project was entrusted to enfold  who delivered an outstanding contemporary facility for the end user.

Within the complex there is now storage for more than 170 bicycles conveniently located in the car park, with further refurbished bathrooms, showers and nearby staff lockers supplied by CSM Office Furniture Solutions who worked in collaboration with METRA Australia’s locking systems to address user concerns.

We spoke to Pamela Kamenitsas lead designer at enfold about their design vision for this project.

Enfold consistently advocates environmentally sustainable design for their clients. What were the key drivers and vision for this project?

The client was looking to create a premium facility that would attract larger companies and corporate tenants. A key driver was to align the style of the design with the existing aesthetics found in the rest of the building, so we worked to create a design that would match the finishes on other floors.

From a design perspective we wanted this EOT to feel more like a hotel spa experience in order to create a nicer experience for users on arrival. We aimed to create a light and fresh space whilst still keeping a feeling of warmth and we did this by using a natural colour palette.  For the lockers in the changerooms we used one of the latest Polytec laminates which give a very realistic wood texture matt finish and is durable and long lasting for a high traffic usage area. We juxtaposed the darker timber tones with a light-coloured floor to tie into the limestone flooring found in the rest of the common areas upstairs. By adding the shoe racks beneath the lockers in white we lightened up the space as the lockers are elevated and appear to float.

We decided to replace traditional benches with a more comfortable ottoman seating, with rounded corners which are more user friendly. We also added subtle organic shapes to soften the interior such as the round mirrors in the ladies’ hair stations and added brass finishes for a luxury accent.   

What innovations or technology were factored into the design in order to facilitate user ease?

 The client was looking for the best solution possible; a system that would enable users to use only one swipe card to access all areas in the building and would integrate with their existing system. To have only one access card for all available building services from the car park, building entries, lifts and available for tenancies was a must.

Following investigation and visits to the various EOTF it became obvious that the simple convenience of using one building access card was not generally available.

We worked in collaboration with CSM to develop storage with integrated locking systems to address user concerns and facilitate ease of use. The Swipe card system we integrated is user friendly and has met with the client’s goals of reducing tenancy service cards from 3 to 1.

What special design elements and features were considered?

We wanted to add some elements to the EOT that would make the user experience more pleasurable.  We found that many End of Trip facilities we visited had not allowed for heating and air-conditioning. As EOT’s are often located in the basement or parking of buildings these areas can be quite cold. We added air-conditioning to ensure the areas would be comfortable. In the men’s facility we also added shoe polishing areas and hair dryers and straighteners in both bathrooms to cater to user needs.

Gym Lockers

How did CSM s products and service align to your customisation requirements for this project?

We found that some locker companies will only work with limited laminate finishes, however CSM was very flexible with regard to the customisation requirements we had. CSM worked both within our aesthetic and functionality brief. We experienced a great service, as there was considerable coordination required with joiners and external providers. CSM was able to deliver the products on time and to our specifications.

” CSM and METRA Australia listened to what we believed to be achievable and provided a system capable of providing exactly what we wanted to achieve.”
Ray Marsh Mirvac

For more information on CSM projects and products contact us sales@csm-office.com.au

What Has Happened To Education Sector Design?

How do you design a campus that encourages students and staff to linger? And how do you foster a sense of connection in a vertical tower block?

As anyone in the A+D world that works in education will attest, one of today’s biggest challenges is creating the highly sought-after ‘Sticky Campus’ – a campus where students actually want to spend time. Not just through spaces that are more visually lively than the formal institutions of old, although this is important, but by designing environments that encourage interaction and collaboration. Because when students forge strong bonds with their contemporaries and educators, and have an appealing environment in which to socialise together, they are much more likely to spend time there. Not because they have to but because they want to.

Building Up: Education Reaches New Heights

The new Western Sydney University (WSU) campus in the centre of Parramatta’s CBD is a brilliant exemplar of how this can be achieved. What’s more, the team at Woods Bagot who were tasked with designing the campus, were working within the challenging parameters of a vertical tower block in which the campus would be stacked over several floors; a set-up that is typically inhibitive to connectivity and interaction. So how did they overcome this?

They began by designing the campus around a vast, open central atrium. This completely opened up the space and enhanced the sense of fluidity and community, allowing for greater mobility whilst adding sightlines between floors. The provision of interconnecting stairs and voids encourages collaboration and organic conversation between students, staff and industry. And, as a key element of Woods Bagot’s initial brief was to blur the lines between a traditional commercial office tower and a functional university campus, this was crucial to its success.

“Our vision was to create a campus multidisciplinary in function, innovative in approach and entrepreneurial in spirit. […This meant] creating a unifying, central and flexible vertical campus environment for WSU students via an evidence-based design approach, applying future-focused education principles”. – Woods Bagot Design Team.

Client briefing also led to proposals for a mixed-faculty occupation of the campus building and so, in a departure from the norm, Business, Economics and Engineering faculties are all intertwined. To cater for this, the campus comprises a diverse range of fully flexible spaces that can accommodate multiple learning landscapes and different academic disciplines. As Alan Duffy, Woods Bagot’s regional education sector leader, says: “This allowed us to test the blend between formal and informal learning spaces and the outcome is a flexible, adaptive environment that encourages learning through conversation.”

Is This The Direction of Education In The Future?

There are also no lecture theatres in this agile, future-proof campus! Rather, a typical floor features four teaching studios or ‘flipped’ classrooms, which are completely re-configurable. So the lecturer can stand either in the centre of the room or at the front, at a retractable console, whilst the student desks are mobile. To ensure the lecturers felt comfortable with this new environment, however, prototypes were set up at two other campuses over two years.

In the spirit of promoting a greater connection, offices also aren’t enclosed. There are just a few private rooms for student consultation, male and female prayer rooms and women’s and parenting rooms. Even the academics were asked to forego their offices and work instead in an open-plan setting where they have dedicated desks and storage amenities.

As with every detail in this project, storage has been very carefully considered and the design team called upon Australian company and all-round storage experts CSM Office Furniture Solutions. CSM has been manufacturing high- quality office furnishing and commercial storage systems for 60 years and so were perfectly placed to help. And with ample personal storage space provided for everyone, staff and students are invited to disburden themselves of their belongings and make themselves feel more at home; another subtle feature that encourages people to linger on campus. Across student and faculty spaces, CSM’s vast portfolio of storage and furniture solutions adorns ten separate floors of the reimagined campus. Throughout levels one to ten, the design team’s extensive use of the Infinity Hinge Door Cabinet provides both staff and students adequate and generous options for storage – a much needed element in such extensive and mobile spaces. Whether for storing vital documents and accessories for a large volume of itinerant hot-desking staff and students, or housing the university’s archives, this lockable unit is future-proofed for generations yet to come, being 100% steel and highly resilient to repeat use.
Office Cabinets

Where desks are no longer merely desks, and education environments are no longer merely just classrooms, personal storage, too, needs to respond to broader design values

Meanwhile, bold visual statements are made through a system of workstation storage: CSM’s Workstation Towers throughout levels eight and ten. With a pearlescent exterior white enamel, these integrated desk storage elements playfully engage with interior and exterior design features. Finished internally in either bright Horizon Blue or Blaze Blue, they’re an inspired design feature that contrasts WSU’s branding, while also passively demarcating spaces for personal storage to free up vital workstation space. Counterproductive desk clutter has magically disappeared, while coupled with Systems Shelving across the same span of storeys, this integrated storage system offers all users a superior and modular solution to economising on space, all the while complementing a variety of different working and educational behaviour requirements. For those more hefty storage requirements, CSM’s Long Span Shelving provides the basement level of the campus maximal clearances and higher efficiencies.

Specifying CSM product was an inspired choice. After all, storage solutions are far more than just simple shelves, units with lock-up exterior and drawers that tend to normally be specified at the tail end of the design process. Rather, here, we see the virtue in integrating storage facility early on in the design intent. After all, such solutions  define space and priority – they, that is, demarcate the space of the individual within that of its public. Reducing personal space from an entire campus, in this case, to a small microcosm and its user’s place within it. They are, in essence, the most concrete example in which the extensive totality of one’s life at WSU – education, sociability, and personal growth – is directly accessible. Personal fulfilment made material, as it were. But in this world of blended typologies where desks are no longer merely desks, and education environments are no longer merely just classrooms, personal storage, too, needs to respond to broader design values. No longer relegated to the position of being the last element specified in the design process, CSM’s locking storage solutions are beginning to leave a bold visual and functional statement.

In other words, mission impossible became mission complete.

It’s a deft touch for the design team who at all points attempted to celebrate the diversity of materials and textures across the project. Solid, natural materials have been used to define the formal learning zones, which, in turn, are surrounded by continuous informal and social spaces. This includes breakout zones where comfortable, reconfigurable furniture encourages staff and students to relax and socialise with one another. The social spaces are also enhanced by transparent glazing, which extends across the podium’s entire southern elevation, allowing natural light to pour through and create a visual connection with the outdoors.

A final noteworthy highlight of the new campus, which adds to its tomorrow-proof design, is its assembly of high-tech features. This includes a library, which is largely digital and where wall queuing panels tell students where they are in the queue. There is also a touch screen in the downstairs lobby, which tells them how long they have to wait for their train!

With its prime location in the heart of Parramatta’s CBD, the ground floor of the building has been given over to a commercial lobby as well as retail and hospitality outlets. The upper levels, meanwhile, are home to commercial and government tenants. Thus, the end product is a vertical learning environment that successfully blurs the lines between business and community and between staff and students. It is the ultimate showcase of a blended learning pedagogy in a future-focussed, spatially diverse and student-centred environment.

…Or, in other words, mission impossible became mission complete.

This article is presented by CSM on http://www.indesignlive.com/the-work/vertical-sticky-happened-education-sector-design

For more information on these products contact CSM sales@csm-office.com.au or visit our website https://www.csm-office.com.au/

Australian Educational Standards Have Fallen Below Par

In the effort to improve our comparative educational standards, the Australian A+D community is becoming more involved in creating a new culture of learning country-wide.

Recently, Australia was delivered one of the most shocking wake-up calls:

“[Q]uite well, given the circumstances; but, there’s clear potential to do better”.

While laced ever-so-slightly with encouragement, this nonetheless damning assessment from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on Australia’s position within global education standards has left many worrying over this country’s comparative educational performance. And so it should.

The State of Education: A Report Card

This statistical report (on global educational performance from 2001-2012, with a prospectus up to 2020) outlined several shocking indictments levelled at the full spectrum of education across this country: at educational institutions, at legislators, at education providers, and finally at students as well. While the average public expenditure on improving educational facilities averaged 6.2% and rising, in Australia it has fallen to below 4.4% and continuing to plummet. Coming in at the 22nd position of the 29 OECD countries assessed, Australian students’ comparative performance has slipped to a scandalous level and, meanwhile, unemployment continues to rise as an entire generation is finding it impossible to enter the professional pipelines.

While this remains an alarming condition for our educational capacity, the past decade of Australian education has, however, observed an unprecedented degree of experimentation intended to alleviate our dwindling prowess. Landmark federal legislation, blanket curriculum standards, streamlined testing, and greater access to secondary language programmes have all contributed to the effort of dramatically reimagining Australian educational processes and institutions. But while the results of these efforts are yet to yield, many decision-makers in this sector (including privately- and government-funded institutions) are turning also to the intelligent design solutions of our A+D community to create a more effective culture of learning that can persist sustainably for the longer-term.

Designing a Smarter Tomorrow: Design-Thinking and Education

While testing, curriculum reviews and teaching processes undeniably exist at the core of this wholesale education revamp, landmark research indicates that greater emphasis needs to be placed on challenging traditional concepts that drive those campus structures informing teaching and learning pedagogies.

The more traditional model of education under which we all were schooled from primary to tertiary years was devised to actively produce a particular breed of graduate – principally, an industrial worker. Placing the instructor at the front of a given space, often elevated, and followed by seating arrangements (usually sterile and uniform in blandness) that face said instructor, this format of designing educational spaces was instituted during the high-Victorian era. Consequently, it was also borrowed directly from Victorian workplace arrangements produced by new industrial technologies and Fordist philosophies. While proving to be fantastic for levelling out individual difference – the industrialist philosophy of ‘another cog in the machine’ – a recent and incredible drive in research and development surrounding behavioural psychology in the education sector has called for design solutions that facilitate self-directed learning. Now seeking to empower each individual’s unique approach to learning and digesting information, A+D is invested in inspiring our students to become truly global citizens with agile problem-solving skills that celebrate critical and creative cognitive patterns.

This entire micro-history of design-thinking is known, currently, by the shorthand ‘Sticky Campus’ approach. Centred around the concept that students, staff and administrative stakeholders can enrich the educational experience through building interpersonal relationships that lead to collaboration, cross-discipline exposure, and valuing the distinctly individual modes of teaching and learning, achieving the ‘sticky campus’ is an exercise in … surprisingly … the art of lingering.

Recognising that a central tenet of educational best practice is the celebration of variety, diversity and the ability to enact creative problem-solving, the ‘sticky campus’ aims not to recreate what is taught, but rather the way we are taught. In short, it attempts to improve functionality and convenience, embracing flexibility to provide a meaningful culture that can support continually improving educational practice. As a beneficial addendum, such an approach to spatial arrangement and design practice also seeks to foster all-important social relationships and patterns of communality, inherent in effective learning. 

 

The Case of Moore College

Located in the Sydney city suburb of Newtown, the Moore Theological College remains one of the largest Anglican seminaries in the world and houses the Moore College library – the largest theological library in the Southern Hemisphere. Under a recent renewal project led by the construction group Kane and architectural firms Geyer and Allen, Jack + Cottier Architects, a reimagined Resource and Research Centre aimed to unite the design-thinking practices surrounding the ‘sticky campus’ movement whilst also attempting to challenge traditional ideas surrounding campus structures.

As requirements for libraries and educational institutions continue to change and challenge pre-accepted norms, the recent consolidation of Moore College’s infrastructure, facilities and administration brings a vast array of stakeholders together under one roof in a bid to promote connectivity and collaboration as key to the college’s educational services.

Through all elements of the design process, it is evident that the design team at Geyer brought to the table their strong backing in reimagining commercial environments to be more in line with the productivity- and collaboration-focused initiatives of the ‘agile workspace’. As an ‘agile educational space’, the Moore College redevelopment is a staggering example of how intelligent design solutions can benefit the institution’s entire community without need of a drastic re-build.

For instance, while the previous college infrastructure only allowed a mere 46 study spaces in the library and a further 20 collaborative zones throughout the entire main campus, Geyer radically transformed existing environments to allow the new college campus comprise 222 reflective study spaces within the library and an impressive 100+ collaborative study spaces throughout the main campus. And, while the Moore library may be one of the largest in its class, administration was only able to retain 60,000 units of the collection onsite. Maximising capacity through a solutions-driven storage design – thanks to the spatially economising library shelving, static shelving, rolling storage units and tambours (pictured) supplied through CSM – has enable the new library to adequately store, maintain and offer over an additional 40,000 units from the library’s growing archive.

In a locale of rising overheads, urban density and inflated property prices, optimising existing infrastructure with intelligent and space-saving storage solutions is undeniably a pressing need. CSM’s design offering allows the reimagined Moore College not only a flexible and quality range of storage devices that add value back to the library’s collection, but also celebrates the fact that this college will continue to grow alongside increasing demand. The collective design team, then, were required at all times to remain cognisant that the college will inevitably need to expand their storage capabilities in the future. CSM’s suite was an inspired choice: a holistic system that is both highly adaptable and modular while also compatible with any number of similar systems within their portfolio.

Executed in a bright, uplifting tonal palette of citrus accented with clean whites, Moore College’s new resources are a stellar example of motivational spatial design. The library (pictured) with its recent additions for solo or collaborative breakout zones successfully integrates socialising with studious productivity. With an aim to create a stimulating environment that both energises and inspires learners, teachers and all staff, this redesign of Moore College’s campus is readily adaptable to the different needs and modes of all stakeholders. With interstitial spaces, areas for sociability, focus and retreat, and broad open areas for collaboration, this intelligent development is helping to shape the very people who will in turn shape our tomorrow.

This article is presented by CSM on Indesignlive.com http://www.indesignlive.com/advertorials/australian-educational-standards-fallen-par

For more information on these products contact CSM sales@csm-office.com.au or visit our website https://www.csm-office.com.au/

Csm Dance For Life

CSM are proud to announce that we are Platinum sponsors of this year’s “Dance For Life” event. Architects and Interior designers are coming together to Dance the night away for a good cause. Support your team by sponsoring them and coming along to the event! Click here to make a donation.  

The fundraiser will support Reach Out an organisation that provides youth with much needed mental health services and programs. Every dollar raised will help to deliver these services.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Background vector created by Kjpargeter – Freepik.com