Eastern makeover

Volume 6 Number 2 February 8 - March 8 2010

It must be something about Melbourne’s ability to transform its gloomy laneways and time-worn buildings into places of warmth and welcome. Shane Cahill reports on the new Eastern Precinct Student Centre.

The newly opened centre incorporates the rough hewn concrete of the former Education Resource Centre as a striking interior wall. An angular glass roof encloses the previously nameless narrow thoroughfare which has been transformed into a bright and airy space that centre manager Ms Margot Eden says has already become the first point of contact for undergraduate Science, Biomedicine and the 2008 and beyond intake of Engineering students.

“The Student Centre, which incorporates a model Contact Centre, provides advice and support to future and current undergraduate students from the time of their enrolment through to the completion of their studies and is also responsible for the academic and course administration of these degrees. The Student Centre reflects the aims of the Melbourne Student Services Model in the provision of high quality student-focused services. Students are able to access individual Student Adviser appointments, enrichment activities and Academic Skills Unit and Careers advice and support from the precinct-based Centre which integrates a range of teaching, learning and recreational services and facilities.

 “Students will be able to study, meet over coffee and have access to a full range of support all within the one precinct,” says centre student services manager, Phillip O’Neill.

For the project architects, the precinct’s challenging raw material produced a design that drew on Melbourne tradition to produce a new university environment. “The project began with an idea of taking windswept, unprotected and institutional internal and external spaces and converting them in to a new type of university environment,” says Patrick Ness, Bachelor of Architecture (Melb. Hons), Design Director Cox Architects.

“It takes as its source the Melbourne urban typologies of street, laneway and arcade as semi unstructured spaces for public life and applies them to an informal learning environment.

“No new buildings have been created but rather a series of places created from the nooks and crannies and the spaces within and between existing buildings. These new event spaces for university life allow seeing and being seen as complementary to learning.”

The student centre is part of a larger Eastern Precinct which is formed by the perimeters of the Sidney Myer Asia Centre, Alice Hoy, Doug McDonell and 1888 Buildings. It combines new student spaces with the redeveloped Eastern Resource Centre (ERC), Frank Tate Learning Centre and the Eastern Precinct Student Centre.

The entrance to the precinct is formed by a striking outdoor timber structure for recreation and study, all of course in a wireless environment. Later this month a café will open at the entrance to the student centre.

“The Student Centre works in close partnership with faculty graduate schools providing information about graduate pathways to which new generation undergraduate degrees may lead ” Ms Eden says.

The Eastern Precinct is the first of the University of Melbourne's 'student precincts' and is intended to provide a physical space that students can identify as their own for their learning, social and recreational requirements.

Another component of the precinct is the Frank Tate Learning Centre which provides a suite of spaces created to be complementary zones for students:

  • a dedicated small-group study space
  • a comfortable reading room
  • an IT zone providing quick access to terminals
  • a unique informal learning and social space called the Learning Atoll


Rounding out the precinct is the Eastern Resource Centre (ERC). The ERC is the first student Learning Centre on the Parkville campus of the University of Melbourne. It is part of the University Library and offers facilities for University of Melbourne staff and students, Caval Patrons, Visiting Scholars and other users. The main focus of its collections is education, engineering, maps, media and multidisciplinary research collections.

For more information:
www.studentcentre.unimelb.edu.au/eastern