A marketing space located in Washington, DC for one
of Australia’s preeminent universities, the goal was to
create connectivity and communicate through space,
the qualities that make the University of Queensland
a distinct and attractive place to study and research.
Queensland is well known for the beauty and richness
of its natural environment and the University’s campus
in St. Lucia is famed for its jacaranda trees. The
springtime flowering of the jacaranda is a key cultural
and environmental event in the life of the campus.
Thus the central space of the design is clad in
wood screens which feature an abstracted pattern
of the jacaranda in bloom. The secondary spaces
are glimpsed and connected through the layers of
the screen wall. When the screen panels are backlit
with artificial light highlighting the rich purple wall
color, there is the sensation of viewing the flowering
tree. Viewed from inside the offices where screens
are layered with transparent glass walls, there is the
sensation of looking through a grove. The screens
mask office functions behind while still allowing view
across. The richness of these effects creates the
primary orientation to not only the space, but to the
life of the University itself.