Lyons

The University of New South Wales’ Faculty of Law is thirtyseven years old this year. It is the second oldest law school in the state and one of the nation’s most wellregarded faculties, but until recently it had been working out of a series of interim locations, from the initial Huts in which it was founded, to the five-storeys of UNSW library tower that it abandoned two years ago. The construction of Lyons’ new Faculty of Law changed all that, providing it with its first purposebuilt building in its now long and distinguished history.

Building to accommodate such a well-established faculty inevitably places unusual demands on the architects. The building that results is called upon to not only house but embody and express the faculty, to stand in for it as an architectural testament to its philosophical and pedagogical underpinnings. That the faculty’s website now alternates images of its students with images of its building is a powerful testament to these exigencies: the building, at the end of the day, must become interchangeable with the faculty itself.

Lyons’ design therefore strives to embody UNSW Law’s particular sense of itself. Established in 1971 to provide an alternative to the University of Sydney’s sandstone structure, the UNSW Faculty of Law thinks of itself as both modern and progressive. They combine a commitment to social justice and community engagement with UNSW’s broader reputation for strength in commerce and economics. Their Faculty includes, on the one hand, a community legal centre providing free legal advice to the local community and, on the other, the Australian School of Taxation (ATAX).

The new Faculty of Law building seems to nod obliquely to both these tendencies. It’s unquestionably a ‘modern’ building, although it could not be more different from the clean lines, stark white and exposed concrete of architectural modernism. Instead, the building is busy, pulsating, alive. Both inside and out, it looks like a corporate building torn asunder by its own frenetic eccentricities. The staid corporate vocabulary of shaded glass, wood panelling and open atria has been bent at oblique angles and doused in a heady palette of purples and greens. The resulting building looks dynamic, as though it is moving off in its own dozen directions, embarking on sometimes abortive trajectories, exploring its limits. Even when it’s not clear where the building is going, it’s clear that it’s going somewhere.

The sense of movement is designed to translate into the circulation patterns of the building’s users. A central agora extends across the building’s four storeys, linking them together and providing a space for informal social and professional meetings – by chance or by design. From these central spaces, the corridors move off towards the buildings various programs: a twostorey law library, teaching spaces, an auditorium, the Kingsford Legal Centre, a moot court, research centres and staff offices.

Almost all of these spaces, including the agora, offer views onto the surrounding campus. This has some significant benefits, of course, from a design perspective, in terms of natural lighting and the simple joy of reassuring students and teachers that the world outside still exists. But it’s also an important symbolic gesture: the idea is to emphasise the ‘openness’ – literal and metaphorical – of the Faculty of Law, to remind those inside that they are principally serving those outside, to stress that they are working in the world not in some hermetic ivory tower.

In these respects, the UNSW Faculty of Law building is an interesting study in both educational design and, perhaps more radically, the ‘branding’ of educational institutions. It explicitly contrasts itself to its sandstone rivals, arguing that its complex, contemporary, outward-looking home is a proxy for its equally complex, contemporary, outward-looking faculty. In its oblique angles and provocative colours, its communal circulation areas and intimate teaching spaces, the Faculty of Law hopes future students and their future employers will see not just a modern way of housing law, but a modern way of practicing law. To this end, the law school building becomes the packaging for the law school itself. +

1 Oblique angles and lines and a highly varied palette of colours and materials create an active and instantly recognisable facade. 2 Alternating between reflective and matte finishes, this facade alludes to forward trajectories. 3 The Faculty of Law fronts UNSW's University Mall, which stretches the length of the campus. Like other buildings that face this thoroughfare, the faculty is set back behind a line of fig and poplar trees. 4 The ground level agora functions as the junction of paths leading off in several directions. 5 Internal glazing opens the library to pathways within the law school, creating a sense of dynamic connection between space.

PHOTOGRAPHY by John Gollings Photography