QLD Chapter - Site Tour of the NEW Andrew N Liveris Building

     Site Tour - Integration of Learning and Research

Photo: Christopher Frederick Jones

Learning Environments Queensland invites you to a Site Tour of the new Andrew N Liveris Building School of Chemical Engineering at the University of Queensland's St Lucia Campus on Tuesday, 26 October 2021.

The Andrew N Liveris Building is a unique integration of learning and research activities within a single building – including learning spaces that serve the wider campus and other specific learning spaces for the School of Chemical Engineering who are the primary occupant of the building. The design creates a learning ‘pathway’ with centrally timetabled learning spaces at the lower levels planned around, and visually interconnected with, the School’s ‘proof of concept’ experimental Pilot Hall, drawing all UQ students in to a ‘learning by seeing’ experience.

These learning spaces are flat floor and designed for state-of-the-art collaborative learning ‘at scale’ with learning groups of 36, 72 or 144 students. The School’s specific learning spaces, located around a central atrium, include ‘learning centres’ or home bases for each of the three undergraduate year levels, together with a large scale super flexible learning laboratory.

A distinctive element of the building design is a series of informal peer to peer learning ‘pods’, both external overlooking the campus and internally within the central atrium, with these acting as break out spaces for students to study between formal classes, and adding positively to the overall student experience on the St Lucia Campus. The overall development also includes a new campus ‘learning landscape’ to the east of the building, providing further informal spaces within a landscape environment and linking together with other campus green spaces including the nearby Great Court.

Leading the Tour

Michael Christensen has 30 years of experience in architectural practice. He is a founding partner of m3architecture who has completed many award-winning education and public building projects. He has expertise in large education projects, including teaching spaces, research, and laboratory design. Michael has lectured at universities and has been invited to speak at local and national conferences.

Steve Coombs has been the School Manager for the school of Chemical Engineering at UQ since 2009. His previous roles at UQ have been varied and include Chief Operation Officer for the ARC Centre for Functional Nanomaterials, Research Officer on various projects on biodegradable plastics, water quality modelling and environmental engineering. Steve was heavily involved in producing the original user brief for the Andrew N. Liveris Building in 2014 and has served as the user representative for the project control group since the launch of the project.

Professor Justin Cooper-White is the Head of the School of Chemical Engineering at UQ and Professor of Bioengineering in the UQ School of Chemical Engineering. His research is focused on understanding the role of mechano-sensing and mechano-transduction in stem cell commitment and tissue genesis and applying this understanding to developing engineered solutions to replace or repair damaged or diseased tissues. Most recently, he has turned his attention to understanding how the mechanics of our organs and tissues change as we age and the critical roles that stem cells and their niches play in this systemic loss of function.

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