The Original Late-Modernist Building Crafts, Details, Colour Palettes and Materiality of Hassell

Hassell is awarded the Canberra Medallion for the ANU Birch Building Refurbishment - a project of an exemplary standard. The work by Hassell on this significant and very large ANU building operates at the highest level in distinct ways:

•   restoration, celebration and interpretation of a significant heritage place demonstrating a detailed and thorough understanding of the importance of the building.

•  transformation of an interior to radically improve amenity, comfort, and energy use with a nuanced understanding of the full range of uses for the building.

•  provision of a setting which supports contemporary education and research with best-practice utility and a thorough understanding of human habitation and use.

•  establishment of an internal planning logic which is nurturing, legible, subtle, flexible and relevant to contemporary use.

In providing these outcomes, each impressive on their own, the greatest achievement is the balancing of so many competing requirements into a singular, seamless whole. This is architecture which synthesises programmatic, aesthetic, technical and pedagogical requirements with consummate skill. It is a gift to the ANU which is not merely useful and beautiful but also poetic in that it captures the optimism of the establishment of the campus but also projects forward a positive and exciting future.

Hassell is awarded the J S Murdoch Award for Heritage Architecture for the refurbishment of the Birch Building at ANU.  It is clear the architects took the heritage significance of the Birch Building very seriously, but nevertheless have achieved an exemplary lightness in their work.

The refurbishment of the Birch Building had to achieve many things-building code compliance, thermal efficiency, radical re-planning, and incorporation of intensive servicing. All of this sometimes tedious and complex work had to be done while maintaining the heritage significance of the building. This work has been expertly completed and the building’s future is now safeguarded through its revitalised utility and expertly revealed beauty, assuring it is preserved as a key element of the Eggleston McDonald and Secomb Precinct Plan.

Hassell has exceeded their brief however by not simply preserving the Birch Building, but by amplifying its heritage significance through interpretation, investigation, and re-contextualisation. The architect’s clearly evident enthusiasm for the original late-modernist building crafts, details, colour palettes and materiality are apparent in every decision across the whole project team.

This is best practice heritage architecture which draws on a deep understanding, respect and appreciation of the subject building and using that energy to make architecture which is qualitatively equal to the original building, helping us to understand and preserve.