Charles Perkins Centre | The world needs more spiral staircases.

by Mar 10, 2021International Case Studies0 comments

The new Charles Perkins Centre at Sydney University is Archicad 21’s iconic signature structure.
This leading research and education centre provides a place for the next generation of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease researchers and practitioners to collaborate, train, mentor, learn, and encourage.

The Charles Perkins Centre (CPC) is a six-story building (plus three basement levels) on the western edge of the University of Sydney Camperdown campus, designed to promote holistic trans-disciplinary collaboration and research. The centre is a purpose-built facility that serves as the first stage of the Life Sciences Research Precinct, which was recently identified.

Over 16,000 square metres of the 50,000-square-meter structure is devoted to wet and dry laboratories. The layout maximises efficiency and versatility while also promoting collaboration and interaction among different research domains and project nodes. The next generation of researchers and practitioners will benefit from open-plan office ‘neighbourhoods,’ a suite of key lab facilities, and shared informal meeting spaces.

The Wilkinson Axis, as well as the background and campus alignments, are taken into account when designing the building shape and elevations. The north-west facade’s vertical dimensions and rhythms reinforce the building’s harmonious relationship with St John’s College’s adjacent heritage architecture.This façade, which is made of a complementary sandstone, features striated slot windows with deep reveals for articulation and shading.

The south-east façade, on the other hand, faces a triangular open space with wide expanses of glazing separated by a series of horizontal natural brush-anodized aluminium louvres. Other façades feature articulated layering of sandstone, glazing, and aluminium in response to internal functions and building mass scaling.A café and access to the 360-seat auditorium are housed in a separate pavilion building with a sweeping roofline adjacent to the main entrance.

The Charles Perkins Centre was designed by fjmt, a multidisciplinary design studio that is one of the region’s most prestigious and award-winning architecture and urban design firms. fjmt is committed to architectural excellence, creativity, and public domain enhancement.

fjmt, which now has 97 Archicad licences, was a pioneer in the Australian industry in the 1990s, implementing desktop CAD and PDF workflows.They realised they needed a 3D modelling and documentation kit in 2000. They chose Archicad over the other two candidates primarily because of its Teamwork capabilities. The programme was only supposed to help them with their architectural design and documentation workflows at first.

Since then, they have moved far beyond their original plans and have become BIM experts while learning the process of using 3D DWG-based model coordination with consultants and contractors as a first step.

They began working with IFC teamwork on large projects in the 2010s, all the way through the design and construction phases.
Most of their projects now use a high-level BIM workflow, with the Archicad building model as the database and dRufus tools for more complex building BIM data management.

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Architects: fjmt, Building Studio (architects in association) Location: Sydney, Australia Type: Educational Cost: AUD 385m / USD 293m Size: 538,000 ft2 / 50.000 m2 Software used: GRAPHISOFT Archicad, Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, MicroStation, Revit, Navisworks, AutoCAD

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