Woods Bagot and ERA-co bring engineering to the centre of campus life at Macquarie University’s newest campus addition.
Grounded by adaptive reuse and designed as a living ecosystem, the new facility signals a shift in how universities design for curiosity, belonging and innovation through STEM education.
Talk to Sarah Ball about Education and Science
Macquarie University’s new Engineering Innovation Building stands at the centre of campus life. The facility merges the technical demands of engineering and astrophysics with a distinctly human‑centred approach to learning. The result is a building that is both robust and generous—technically sophisticated yet unexpectedly soft. It puts engineering on display, drawing students in and inviting the broader community inside.
Designed by Woods Bagot, with Strategic Briefing by ERA‑co, the project team developed a set of experiential principles to ground the design approach. Working closely with staff and students, the team unpacked the patterns of project‑based learning, iterative prototyping, industry immersion, and the fluid movement between different modes of working. Central to the design is what Project Leader Alissandra Johnston describes as “sticky spaces”—carefully considered areas that naturally draw students to campus and encourage spontaneous interactions that fuel learning.
One of the project’s most significant strategic moves was the decision to retain the existing 9 Wally’s Walk building. The team proposed keeping parts of the existing structure, reimagining its role, and anchoring the new facility directly at the heart of the campus. This approach unlocked a series of layered benefits. The existing building became home to dry labs, offices, and lower‑intensity learning spaces, while a new purpose‑built wing to the east accommodates high‑service engineering workshops, heavy machinery, and the dramatic Integration Hall for Australian Astronomical Optics. Connecting the two is a central, light‑filled Field—an urban room where campus life, industry, and engineering visibly intersect.
The ground plane is conceived as a sequence of stages: performative, flexible, and inherently public spaces. The Makerspace, located at the corner of Wally’s Walk, is the building’s headline act—a double‑height workshop that places student teams and their work on immediate display.
The central Field exemplifies this multi‑modal thinking. Students can sit eating lunch, working on homework, or testing fabrications, while evening and weekend events transform the same space into a community hub for presentations, robot competitions, and student showcases. Informal learning terraces, an open forum, and a suspended mezzanine observation deck create a dynamic, interactive atmosphere.
Further along, a series of glass‑fronted student club garages extends the notion of visibility. Here, engineering teams work on year‑long projects within workshop bays that operate as miniature storefronts of ideas in progress.
At the centre of the building sits the AAO Integration Hall, a three‑storey, crane‑equipped laboratory where astronomical instrumentation is assembled at full scale before being shipped to observatories around the world. A constellation of slot windows offers glimpses into this extraordinary work—sometimes open and active, but also capable of shutting out all light when teams need to work in total darkness for specialised testing.
With so many disciplines under one roof, materiality needed to be both expressive and pragmatic. The architectural approach emphasises robustness, clarity, and a confident modesty. The existing brick building remains legible and is strengthened through upgraded glazing and shading, while the new wing introduces a distinctive metal façade—a triangulated pattern inspired by the dappled canopy of Wally’s Walk and the structural logic of engineering trusses.
Using three different metal panels, the façade shifts character throughout the day. In summer, it mirrors the density of the tree line. In winter, its geometric folds catch the low sun and echo the branching patterns of bare limbs.
A new extension at the front of 9 Wally’s Walk anchors the corner of Wally’s Walk and Eastern Road, creating a direct visual connection into the engineering building. Named The Forum, this amphitheatre space hosts lectures, film screenings, and presentations in one of the campus’s most visible locations. It is a space designed for engagement: students connect with the pedestrian flow outside, while passers‑by catch glimpses of the creativity within.
Inside the Field, exposed steel trusses support a run of sawtooth skylights that wash the building in soft southern light. It is the architectural heart of the project, unifying four interconnected volumes into a single, breathable experience—open, navigable, and intuitively social.
From the beginning, the question was simple: how do we create a building where students walk in and feel as though their engineering careers have already begun?
Woods Bagot and ERA-co bring engineering to the centre of campus life at Macquarie University’s newest campus addition. Grounded by adaptive reuse and designed as a living ecosystem, the new facility signals a shift in how universities design for curiosity, belonging and innovation through STEM education.