The University’s many-facetted edge advances over the public way, engaging passers-by in its displays. Elevated and luminous, the Display Case invites exploration through its boldly incised entrance.

A reconciliation between the tower and smaller, well-loved areas is achieved by new human-scaled spaces between the Tower Fragments. The iconic Building One is preserved and emulated in the new Podium’s geometrical plan and use of unadorned materials.

Unified by existing stairs and lifts, the new lends vitality to the old, and fresh life is breathed into the old Podium from the Alumni Green. The weight of the tower is alleviated by the lightness and uplift of the new forms.

Plants and trees give a cool, conservatory atmosphere to the Display Case. Controlled sunshine, filtered fresh air and thousands of tonnes of retained building material are included in our ESD strategy for the new building.

The significant heritage buildings and vacant areas of the site have been integrated and developed for five major activities, each supporting the role of the centre.

The Eora Campus provides dormitory accommodation for visiting educational and sporting groups of up to 100 people, with associated sleeping, dining, classroom and recreational areas. This activity uses three of the refurbished buildings of the former Redfern Public School. A high-quality football training field, chiefly for use by the Eora Campus facility is located on the western playground of the former school, facing Cope Street.

The YMCA operated Eora Sports, Arts and Recreation Centre, a purpose-built three level multi-use sporting complex, includes indoor sports halls and activity rooms, a heated 25m pool and associated change and storage areas.

Gadigal House’s flexible space, leased for office accommodation for tenants with a relationship to the primary sporting/educational uses of the site, and to the Indigenous educational group The Exodus Foundation, occupies the fourth building of the former School.

The design was extensively workshopped with a range of stakeholders. A full Heritage Assessment and Impact Study was prepared by TZG as part of the work.

The National Centre of Indigenous was opened in March 2010 by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Externally, on a constrained site, the building gives the school a new basketball court on the roof of the building, connecting directly to the oval. Further recreation areas are provided by “external rooms” adjacent the classrooms. A subtly coloured pattern of louvres of anodised aluminium livens the external facade, acting also as a balustrade.

The building is designed for flexibility, created on a simple grid plan determined by the lower level parking lot, the walls can be moved for future needs.

The complex brief for the building accommodates a wide range of functions to foster the growing music and drama program at the school, within a highly constrained, steeply sloping site. The budget was modest for the required accommodation, and this necessitated a very careful selection of materials and finishes to ensure quality and durability.

The Centre comprises a 350-seat auditorium, with state-of-the-art acoustics, lighting and sound equipment, housing a variety of activities ranging from intimate performances to full stage musical productions. It is equipped with the latest presentation technology for lectures and seminars to cater for the entire school community. The Centre provides an extensive range of specialist rooms including orchestra and band rehearsal rooms, music class rooms, drama studio, recital rooms, practice rooms, a computer and keyboard laboratory, instrument storage and staff rooms.

A spacious glass Foyer flows onto a new central Quadrangle that has become the heart of the school campus. The Foyer accommodates varied school and community functions as well as being an ideal space to showcase students’ work. The Foyer and its brick colonnade extend to reface the 1980s Multi-Purpose Hall, creating a unified indoor-outdoor ‘public room’ for the College.

Face brick was selected for the dominant external wall material, to link the new building to a range of recent and heritage buildings on the site. The irregular site suggested a contemporary angled geometry for the building, functionally related to the need for non-rectilinear volumes internally for acoustic reasons. This geometry inspired the row of ‘dancing’ columns forming the generously-scaled colonnade which links the Centre and the Multi-Purpose Hall to the new Quad.

As part of the Centenary of Federation, the School of Arts has been conserved, refurbished and extended. The project includes a range of cultural and community facilities for the town of Tenterfield. A new library occupies the 1912 Billiard Room, and includes a new wing accommodating the library book-stacks and offices. A 250-seat theatre and foyer, with full backstage facilities, is formed around the 1902 Boer War memorial Hall. The focus of the complex is the Henry Parkes and Federation Museum in the Original Hall and reading rooms.

The design articulates and functionally unifies the seven construction stages grouped around the sheltered central courtyard. The use of local red brick and the scale of the projecting bay windows unite the varied roof forms of the new and heritage buildings. The School of Arts is the focus for historical and cultural activity within the Tenterfield region and played a major role in the Centenary of Federation celebrations.

The projects links to an existing Primary School, under the management of Nord Anglia. Detailed facility briefing and design was undertaken by TZG using local and overseas benchmarks, to meet the special needs of the worldwide education provider.

Surrounding the school and its central green are 50 high-quality residential villas and a waterfront major park. New roads, a canal and access bridge are all part of the design, undertaken by TZG and Context landscape.

The overall project unties sensitive site and water management with low-energy passive ventilation design and straightforward detailing.

Using fast-track design and construction management, the project opened in 2004, in under 18 months from design commencement.

The primary meeting places such as the Lecture Theatre, Library, Museum, COFA Space, Cafeteria and Student Common Room have been deliberately disbursed across the site, to spread students and teachers across the limited land area on various different levels. The focal open spaces are each located to key into a different floor level of the main building so that the privilege of connection between interior and open space is not monopolised by one level.

The proposal aims to reorient the COFA Campus onto Oxford Street to form a gateway to the City. It provides generous linked galleries while offering flexible teaching and research space. The careful articulation of the central courtyard and the College circulation are designed to enable an effective and stimulating campus life. A coordinated series of strategic ‘moves’ inform and direct the planning, landscape and architecture, to create a world-class campus focused to the City.

Because of the constraints on the site, Tonkin Zulaikha Greer in conjunction with Budden Nangle Michael Hudson, proposed a building form generated by a series of inclined planes, producing an irregular wedge. The volume to the North is subtle, whilst that to the South, due to the 32° solar access plane, is overt.

The design progresses this overall approach to maximise the volume within the permitted envelope, whilst modulating the building where appropriate. The design language is extended to the refurbishment of the remaining buildings in the project, with the forms generated by both the existing structures and the shaping of the new elements between.

A visually engaging and dynamic and a thermally-efficient, organic cellular facade system was proposed that would also function as an iconic element defining the identity of this innovative facility.

The development unites research and learning environments in a flexible and at times seamless manner. The diverse working activities of research range from teaching, lab work, office write-up and administration to the “Club” space – a mixing of work and social activity, which is increasingly being recognised as an effective and important part of the working environment.

The house itself has been conserved and adapted as lounge areas, office and small meeting rooms. The major spaces of the Centre are accommodated in a new addition, designed as two wings on a single-level. The clear separation of the three main building forms, articulated with landscaped courts, is in accordance with the conservation plan and provides a sense of openness and light.

One wing, a masonry structure, has twin adaptable meeting rooms, a catering kitchen and bar. The other, designed as a lightweight, steel-framed garden pavilion, is a 150 seat dining room. Defined by an integral floating curved timber canopy, the dining room opens to the northern verandah and gardens beyond. The simple steel and glass architecture of this new pavilion contrasts with the enclosed masonry of the old house.

The existing garden areas have been reworked to provide suitable exterior spaces for functions, and twelve 19th century stone gateposts, excavated from the site, define the generous lawns.