McBride Charles Ryan (MCR) has completed new design for Monash University Logan Building in Clayton Campus, new student accommodation building is comprised of a zigzag-patterned facade and raised up over modernist colonnades. The Logan Hall building, on Monash University’s Clayton Campus, is a 7 level building with 250 rooms of student accommodation designed by McBride Charles Ryan. 

It is located on a strategic corner where Sports Walk meets Scenic Boulevard. This building is one of four houses of similar accommodation that were designed concurrently by three individual design teams – MCR, Jackson Clements Burrows and Hayball Architects in association with Richard Middleton Architects.

Image © John Gollings  

The finishes of the facade of Logan include materials for long-term durability, wear, the elements and robustness. Parts of the perimeter of the new buildings is primarily comprised of a maintenance free glazed brick outer shell. The internal space is structured so as to allow long term flexibility and adaptability.

The ground floor of Logan Hall will be occupied by a mix of retail tenants. Building services and servicing, plant and equipment, the residents’ garden and BBQ facilities are located in a landscaped courtyard to the south of the building. The residents’ foyer is positioned where the two wings of the building meet. This foyer can be accessed via pedestrian approaches from both the north and south. Vertical circulation and common facilities are also grouped in this corner on each of the buildings levels. 

Image © John Gollings 

These, which include double height common and games rooms, are places of increased activity where students meet and socialize while enjoying the eastern views to the Dandenong’s and beyond. Differing colour schemes are used in the public spaces of each level and four distinct apartment colour schemes are peppered throughout providing the building with identity and vibrancy.

Image © John Gollings 

Monash University, conceived in the modernist heyday, is the veritable inversion of the traditional sandstone campus. Buildings as objects and mini-megastructures, the exceptional and the ordinary, are dotted throughout a native landscape. 

It is these origins which give the campus its uniqueness and it is these origins that detract from its urbanity. The work by the Monash University Design Review Panel and Campus Master Planners (MGS Architects) seeks to bring more definition and legibility to the Clayton campus. 

Image © John Gollings 

Their work has included steering developments to enhance the environmental quality through more clearly defined precincts, to improve the clarity of the campus landscape walks, and to conceive of Monash University as a 24-7 University City. 

There is a tension between the origins and uniqueness of the campus and this desire for a new sense of urban legibility. The project for Logan Hall sought to respond to this tension and the MGS Architects masterplan.

Image © John Gollings 

To the east, the split masses of Logan Hall act to reinforce the civic and urban quality of Scenic Boulevard. To the south, the L shaped building defines an open garden space for the students of the House. 

To the north, the modularity of the student units has been utilized to provide an unlikely and expressive form that recalls the distinct modernist formalism so evident in the Campus. Further elements such as the ground level colonnade, both cloister and modernist piloti suggest the building is a new complex hybrid. 

Image © John Gollings 

The buildings stepped form and colonnade define a landscaped fore-ground to the building that sits alongside the newly developed Sports Walk. The colonnade, which aligns with the natural pedestrian desire lines of the campus, also provides a sheltered space between ground floor cafes and the northern landscaped forecourt.

Project Facts

Project name: Monash University Logan Building / (Student Accommodation Clayton Campus), (Monash C2)

Completion date: December, 2015

Location: 42 Scenic Blvd Clayton VIC 3168, Australia

Client: Monash University

Team: Rob McBride (Director), Debbie Lyn Ryan (Owner), Drew Williamson (Senior Associate), Phuong Nguyen (Project Architect), Bernadette Zajd (Graduate Architect), Jamie McCutcheon (Project Architect), Alex Morse (Architect Assistant), Nathan Su (Architect Assistant), Rebecca Di Como (Architect Assistant).

Construction team: Builder: Brookfield Multiplex                 

Consultant team

Structural Engineer (Schematic Design): FMG Engineering

Structural Engineer: Robert Bird Group                                                  

Services Engineer: Norman Disney & Young                                                     

Landscape Architect: TCL Taylor Cullity Lethlean                                                  

Civil Engineer (Schematic Design): FMG Engineering     

Civil Engineer (After Novation): Robert Bird Group                               

Building Surveyor: PLP Building Surveyors & Consultants                                      

Access Engineers: Before Compliance                                                     

Acoustic Engineers: Acoustic Logic                                                  

ESD Engineer (Schematic Design): Irwin Consult     

Project Management: Donald Cant Watts Corke                                              

Aborist: Tree Logic                                                                          

ESD Engineer (Schematic Design): Irwin Consult     

ESD Engineer: Wood & Grieve Engineers                                                              

Wind Engineering Consultant: MEL Consultants   

Top image © John Gollings 

> via McBride Charles Ryan