WK Hancock Building Refurbishment + Fitout, ANU

Client:  Australian National University
Size: 5,030m² (refurbishment), 2,130m² (fitout)
Cost: $11m
Date: 2015

AMC was engaged by the Australian National University (ANU) in 2011, to undertake a feasibility study for the fitout and refurbishment of the WK Hancock Building to provide consolidated accommodation for the Division of Information (DOI).  In 2013, the fitout and refurbishment proposal was reviewed and updated, as an internal ANU restructure had seen DOI replaced with the Information Technology Services Division (ITS), and there were changes to the roles, responsibility and organisational structure of the new division.  In October 2013, the project was approved to proceed and AMC, together with our sub-consultant team, was engaged to undertake the detailed design of the project.  The project included a complete refurbishment of the building, including significant fitout works on Levels 1, 4, 5 & 6 for ITS, as well as recladding the building with a new modern façade.  Replacing the façade of the WK Hancock Building presented an exciting opportunity to fundamentally change the character of the building – a building that while it had a tired, dated and bland appearance, remained one of the tallest buildings (if not the tallest) on campus and was viewed from many areas around the campus, and indeed from further afield.

To this end AMC developed a façade replacement strategy which employed the following design principles:

• Targeted use of curtain wall glazing to hide large sections of the somewhat monotonous concrete frame expression, presenting a lighter cleaner looking facade while achieving a stronger vertical expression.
• Reiterate the predominantly black, white & grey colours of the Colleges of Science buildings with a black glass curtain wall system and a silver metallic cladding to the remainder of the building
• Targeted colour to the entry canopy signage and soffit as a counterpoint to the neutral façade in a similar way that targeted use of colour has been used contrast against the predominantly black and white facades of the adjacent buildings
• Emphasis of the building corners which contain base building core elements such as toilets and fire stairs, with new horizontally-expressed façade cladding and narrow horizontal window penetrations as a counterpoint to the predominantly glazed façade sections elsewhere with their vertical expression.

The whole project, including the new façade, was completed with only a marginal increase to original project program and project budget, and provides the ITS with a fitting workplace within a modern office building.

See more of our Refurbishments + Adaptive Reuse projects.