La Trobe University Vice Chancellery David Myers Building

This project involved the internal refurbishment of the Chancellery offices on Level 3 and main stairwell of the imposing 1960s Myers building by Yunken Freeman.

The Chancellery is the corporate hub of campus, hosting visiting dignitaries, benefactors, and potential benefactors. Its renewal, along with the main stairwell and lift areas, reasserts the Chancellery’s gravitas from ground level up, and improves way-finding for visitors and staff.

A motif of the redesign are the black timber ‘ribbons’ sailing overhead from the building undercroft and VIP entry up through the stairwell void, directing visitors to the Chancellery lobby on Level 3. These jet-black detailing devices was inspired by the original building’s fenestration, and similar details appear elsewhere, reinforcing a link between the new interior and Freeman’s original Modernist building.

Location: Wurundjeri Country
Bundoora, Victoria
Client: La Trobe University
Value: $2M
Scale: 1,460m²
Year: 2013
Project Contact: Christon Smith and Jane Sayers
Photography: Dianna Snape
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Smaller Chancellery offices were rationalised to create a flexible boardroom and function space under a double-height dome — the original grand gesture that had proved too ‘echoey’ for its intended use as a private meeting chamber.

The new space conceals AV conferencing technologies and lighting in the ceiling, while celebrating the dome with a new circular wall of tall black columns that dramatically improve the acoustics. Beyond the black columns, new breakout areas offer views to the lake and University lawn.

Visually the columns connect to the black ‘ribbons’ and the black-and-white stairwell and lobby, a considered backdrop to the contemporary art displayed along the main Chancellery corridors. By contrast, entry into the Chancellery office, and its working interiors, are defined by limed oak panelling that lends warmth and references the pale eucalypts around the campus.

The original Myers building by Yuncken Freeman, and its quasi-rural, setting have informed DesignInc’s approach to the interiors in several ways, and strikingly, in the black timber ‘way-finding ribbons’ that signal your arrival at La Trobe Chancellery.
Brett Seakins
Artichoke, 2014