UNSW – The Centre for Photovoltaic Devices & Systems / Kensington Campus, NSW
A complex and difficult brief to house the “shopfont” to a world leading solar panel research group at the University of New South Wales. The challenge was exacerbated by the site being the dark undercroft of the existing School of Electrical Engineering.
CLA choose to handle this tight situation by creating a flexible plan with maximum natural and artificial light. This was been achieved with a sinuous, complex layout that has rooms opening directly onto a circuitous central walkway, with each room able to borrow space from (and give to) this spine. Illumination is provided to the centre of the undercoft making the external enclosing walls from glass block, with internal glazed partitions to perimeter offices, which, although privately contained, act as conduits of daylight into the building.