Signature building for UQ Ipswich

A newly-completed $7.5 million building at UQ Ipswich will become the community hub at Ipswich.

The building has been designed by Wilson Architects to represent a “village market square”.

It houses the Library, the Student Centre, Information Technology Services, Health Services, The Equity Office, the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Unit and the Student Union.

Other occupants include learning advisers, counsellors, the disability adviser, Chaplaincy and the welfare officer.

Hamilton Wilson from Wilson Architects says the building reinforces the community hub of the existing campus and is “a place to interact with people and the printed and digital media, student services, counselling and health services.”

“The facility is in fact three buildings interconnected with a two-storey high landscaped space that symbolically stitches the variety of spaces together,” Mr Wilson said.

Visitors will be able to survey the services, collections and facilities on offer – books, journals and multimedia; information assistance and loans, computers with access to the Internet, the Student Centre and Student Support Services, eZones, casual seating areas, individual and group study areas, and a café.

Mr Wilson said the establishment of a large internal garden reinforced the Centre’s focus and circulation and ensured air quality of the highest standard for a building with such intensive use of electronic equipment.

He said the internal garden with a water feature provided a relaxed space for group study, a green space away from weather extremes and a buffer between the noise of the “eZones” and the quiet of the book stacks.

University Librarian Janine Schmidt said the new meeting place would “further enrich the student experience at UQ Ipswich.”

“Critical to the design of this Centre was the focus on student needs, co-locating the services students and staff call upon to support their teaching, learning and research,” she said.

Professor Trevor Grigg, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (International and Development) said UQ Ipswich was a vibrant campus with new, contemporary courses, high-tech facilities and an emphasis on student-centred learning.

Professor Grigg, said the Centre represented the meeting of The University of Queensland and the Ipswich region.

“Through the materials used in the building, the focus on IT and its openness to the community, it links the real and the virtual and the campus and the community,” Professor Grigg said.

Media: For more information, contact Anne Horn on (07) 3365 2018.