UTS Podium Competition



UTS Podium Competition in Syndey, Australia by Lacoste + Stevenson

Text and images are courtesy Lacoste + Stevenson for their competition-winning entry in the UTS Podium Competition.

Lacoste + Stevenson’s podium extension of the UTS Tower Building, together with the CUB developments of Jean Nouvel’s residential tower and Norman Foster’s commercial buildings, and Denton Corker Marshall’s Engineering and IT Faculty Building, will create an outstanding precinct along this section of Broadway. The podium extension gives UTS the opportunity to reinvent its presence along Broadway, in Sydney and beyond.

The new main entrance of the university is located on the axis of the Tower Building foyer and reinforces the seamless integration of the extension with the existing building. In contrast to the Brutalist architecture of the Tower, the new podium intervenes as an undulating semi-transparent building wrapping the base of the Tower. This is achieved with curved glass and a white frit in a forst pattern. It appears soft and almost pliable like a curtain; its smooth surface blowing inward dramatically to mark the main entrance on Broadway.

At street level, the proposal encourages active street edges. The transparency of the façade will reveal exhibition and public spaces inside the entrance on the ground floor. The Co-op Book Shop on the corner of Jones Street and the cinema entrance and café to the east will provide activity along a substantial portion of the street frontage.

The project has been designed in collaboration with Daryl Jackson Robin Dyke Architects, Six Degrees and ARUP (structure and facade), Steensen Varming (mechanical + ESD), WT Partnership (quantity surveyors), and McGregor Coxall (landscape architects).

For more information on the winning design, check out Lacoste + Stevenson's competition sketchbook, this animation, and the architect's longer description on their web page.

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