Swanston Academic Building, RMIT University

RESEARCH BACKGROUND: Lyons Architects was commissioned by RMIT to design the Swanston Academic Building (SAB), a $220m project and the centrepiece of the University's portfolio of significant architecture on its Swanston Street Campus. The 'vertical campus' houses a range of innovative student-centred learning spaces developed around collaborative pedagogies. It is one of the largest teaching and learning facilities in Australia and the largest construction project that RMIT had undertaken. RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION: Lyons' architecture demands thinking about issues that are "larger" than architecture; its commitment to making identity-driven spaces expresses collective and individual identity, hierarchy and complexity, individuality and autonomy. Through architecture, Lyon questions institution and social order, education and commodification. RESEARCH SIGNIFICANCE: The building is one of Melbourne's most prominent architectural features, winning the 2013 AIA National Award for Public Architecture. It also won: High Commendation at the 2013 World Architecture Awards in Singapore, the world's largest architectural awards program; the 2013 Australian Construction Achievement Award by Australian Constructors Association and Engineers Australia; and the Infrastructure and Buildings Award at the 2013 Premier's Sustainability Awards by Sustainability Victoria, also receiving 5-star Green Star Education Rating from Green Building Council of Australia. It received extensive peer review in 2013: Mark Magazine #46, Oct/Nov, pp.102-113; Archiworld vol 212, cover and pp.22-31; Interior World vol 113 pp.6-13; Architecture Australia, 101 (5); and SMH (Aug). In 2012, it featured online in Architecture Australia (Nov); The Age (Jul); Dezeen (Nov); Architecture and Design magazine (Oct). Lyon was interviewed in Architecture Australia about this project (online, Nov 2013).