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How Boola Katitjin came to life
The way we live and work is influenced by the physical environments we build. Boola Katitjin presents a world class example of how positive that influence can be.
鈥淭o me, it's really all about connections and relationships and I think because it was designed so purposely, that's really come to life,鈥 Chanelle van den Berg, Pro Vice Chancellor First Nations, said about 晚夜福利网站鈥檚 new building.
鈥淭he theme of relationships that we discussed throughout the design process really comes out here, because you can see your students walking through corridors, you can go and have conversations and they really connect in that way.鈥
It鈥檚 no accident that the expansive space 鈥 the largest timber framed building in Western Australia 鈥 has been so quickly embraced by students, staff and guests of the University.
The design team, which included Kieran Wong of The Fulcrum Agency working alongside principal architect Lyons, was acutely aware of the scale, the role the building had to play in campus life, and how it should interact with the environment around it.
鈥淎 lot of time was spent thinking about how that might work, because universities can be stressful places. They are places of study, there's exams, there's all sorts of things that are happening,鈥 Wong said.
鈥淚n many ways, a lot of the design of the project was around how to deal with student engagement and wellbeing - and how do we kind of embed and engage and connect people to feel like they belong?
鈥淭hat's a really big challenge for a lot of universities, especially in a teaching and learning building where the cohort is transient.鈥
This goes to the heart of the building鈥檚 biophilic design, which is about increasing people鈥檚 connection to the natural environment.
鈥淚 think biophilic design, in a way, is about designing with Country. It's a kind of connecting with Country in a more total way 鈥 in the way that I think Indigenous people talk about the Country, which is more than landscape,鈥 Wong explained.
鈥淪o, in a building like this, a lot of attention was paid to not just the kind of building material, which is incredible, but also the way it kind of draws you out into the landscape and draws landscape in.
You get to see sun changes, wind changes, you get to feel the environment every time you cross between spaces.鈥
The stories of the land and the stories of the people who first cared for it were all brought into the process, van den Berg explained.
鈥淚t was really important to make sure that we were authentically engaging with Aboriginal people in that whole process because it makes this space really special.
鈥淎t the beginning, that was having consultants come walk around the land, tell those stories and then all the way through to having those relationships with Aboriginal people.
鈥淢eaningful engagement is not just going out to Aboriginal people and saying, 鈥榯ell us what to do鈥, but having that ongoing relationship and I think Murdoch did that really well.鈥
This approach was explored as part of the World Green Building Council鈥檚 series The Spaces That Shape Us produced by BBC Storyworks, which features 晚夜福利网站鈥檚 Boola Katitjin.
Building the vision
Building the first of anything in a place is difficult. So, to engineer the largest mass engineered timber building ever built in WA with such a powerful vision of connectedness, the team needed to set a new precedent.
Pratik Shrestha, principal engineer from Aurecon, said it all started with understanding the material in hand.
鈥淭he first thing we did was reach out to the timber industry to really understand a simple question of here's a tree and here's the building 鈥 how do you go from A to B?鈥 Shrestha explained.
鈥淚t sounds simple enough, but we needed to roadmap that out and look at the risks and look at the opportunities, because often that's where projects fall over.
鈥淲e all have great aspirations to do great things, but reality kicks in, budget kicks in, and all sorts of constraints kick in and projects often fall over.鈥
It required strong management to overcome those challenges and Shrestha said the leadership of the project team was unprecedented.
That was a big part of making this happen 鈥 collaboration across all the teams involved was absolutely fantastic.鈥
One of the greatest engineering challenges was the huge portal frames in the northern plaza, which Shrestha said pushed the boundaries of engineering.
鈥淚nitially we had columns throughout the plaza, but Murdoch asked us to remove them. The easy answer would have been to just leave the columns, but we thought let鈥檚 push it and see what we can do.鈥
Engineering calculations weren鈥檛 sufficient to prove that a 30-metre portal frame would work, so the team used it as a research opportunity.
鈥淲e built a full-scale prototype of one of these connections and broke it to pieces to understand the behaviour of the portal frame.
鈥淎s a result, we were able to achieve this amazing space that will be used by thousands of students for many years to come.鈥
A symbol of sustainability
Not only a model for cultural engagement and timber engineering, Boola Katitjin also sets a new benchmark for sustainability.
鈥淚t is symbolic of an effort to meet the biggest challenge we collectively face: to develop sustainable ways of living without destroying the fragile ecosystems and indeed cultures of our planet,鈥 Dr Martin Brueckner, Pro Vice Chancellor Sustainability said.
鈥淭o do so we must be compassionate to our surroundings and continue to develop the social, environmental and technical competencies required to embrace a circular economy.
鈥淏oola Katitjin provides a case study of that progress. A case study of cultural engagement, of sustainable design and of the exploration of materials that are central to improving our built environments.鈥
The building鈥檚 environmental credentials include a 450kw solar panel array, estimated to produce more than 60% of the building鈥檚 operational energy requirements at peak conditions, stormwater harvesting for grey water use in the building and more than 26,000 native plants in the surrounding land.
It all comes together to benefit those it was built for: students at a university that鈥檚 all about sustainability and inclusion.
鈥淲hat I love is that the students from day one have really just owned the building,鈥 van den Berg said.
鈥淭hey鈥檝e named it Boola and they feel really connected to it.鈥
Learn more about Boola Katitjin and how it is enhancing the student experience.