Lacoste + Stevenson’s podium extension of the UTS Tower Building, together with Jean Nouvel’s residential tower, Norman Foster’s commercial buildings, and DCM’s Engineering and IT Faculty Building will create an outstanding precinct along this section of Broadway. The podium extension gives UTS the opportunity to reinvent its presence along Broadway, in the Sydney and beyond.
This extension will provide a new main entrance to the university. In contrast to the Brutalist architecture of the Tower, the new podium is open and welcoming. It intervenes as an undulating semi-transparent building wrapping the base of the tower. This is achieved with curved glass and a white frit in the pattern of a forest. It appears soft and almost pliable like a curtain; its smooth surface blowing inward dramatically to mark the main entrance on Broadway.
At street level, the proposal encourages active street edges. The transparency of the façade will reveal exhibition and public spaces inside the entrance on the ground floor. The Co-op Book Shop on the corner of Jones Street and the cinema entrance and café to the east will provide activity along a substantial portion of the street frontage.
Large-scale structural, lace steel columns contribute to the lightness of the building. Their hollow centre allows visual connections between floors, natural ventilation and the light to penetrate deep inside. Vertical circulation will take place inside the columns. The columns are filled with water for fire rating.
