The Macquarie University Incubator aims to amplify and imbue deep thinking around innovation, bringing together entrepreneurial spirit, ingenuity and collaboration.

The Incubator was conceived as a pair of pavilions, each with flexible layouts that lend themselves to future adaptations and functions with the facilitation of collaboration being the underlying principle. The architecture is designed to be both a light touch and memorable, responding to the shallow falling site, the beautiful wooded context and Macquarie University’s aspiration to create a building that represents and encourages innovation.

The Incubator was designed to be 100 percent reusable and therefore, sustainability was key to the design approach; selection of materials, fabrication of modular timber cassettes, installation of the timber structural system and strategy for services. The concept centred on a prefabricated timber structure that was designed to enable rapid assembly and the potential for future dis-assembly, relocation and reassembly. Project deadlines necessitated fast-tracked construction, which the team achieved through the design of prefabricated and modular timber componentry.

The Incubator is a demonstration that Macquarie University is facilitating societal and sustainable advancement through partnerships, through research, through invention and through high quality architectural design.

About the Awards

The Sustainability Awards is Australia’s longest running and most prestigious awards program dedicated to acknowledging and celebrating excellence in sustainable design and architecture. Nominations received are shortlisted and then winners for each category are announced at a five-star Gala evening hosted this year at the Star, Sydney on 11 October 2018. The daytime event Sustainability Live is a CPD-endorsed education event where industry experts present a range of topics to educate, inform and ignite learning.

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