River’s Edge is a learning, teaching and research building located at the edge of the North Esk / lakekeller river and set amongst the historic Launceston Railway Workshops at the University of Tasmania’s Inveresk Precinct. It offers contemporary learning environments and communities of workplace for meaningful exchange between students and university staff.

Mediating the end of Traverser Lane and the Architecture School, the building presents a leading edge to the precinct which is enlivened with large windows addressing Traverser Lane. From this point the building expands and embraces views of the river. Along its length, the sawtooth geometry of the surrounding mid-century industrial roofscape has been flipped on its side with human-scaled spaces for inhabitation.

The ground floor is organised around a series of brick-pods, where a range of collaborative teaching and student support programs take place. Above, large timber lightwells hover, which reference the brick geometry below, they direct the view upward to inspire moments of awe and delight.

River’s Edge celebrates its position within a post-industrial site, it adapts and optimises an industrial vocabulary for enhanced solar orientation and thermal performance, while thinking beyond the building to target embodied carbon reductions in construction, operation and end-of-life impact.

Furniture: Furniture specified as per agreement with our client and UCI from a range of suppliers, Lighting: Iguzzini, Laser Blade XS, Laser Blade inOut, Zumtobel, Clear Supreme, Unios, LX Infinity up/down, Thorlux Lighting, Kast, Phosforma, Ben_small & Ben_large. Finishes: Classic Ceramics, Silverlake Vitrified Porcelain Tile, Artedomus, Format Flat Hanten, Big River Timbers Armourfloor, engineered flooring, Forbo, Marmoleum resilient flooring – Piano, Concrete, Splash, Striato, Safestep Aqua, Tarkett – Desso, Shaw Contract. Fittings & Fixtures: Door hardware – Assa Abloy, Sanitary fixtures/ fittings – Caroma, Clark & Reece.

Photography: Adam Gibson