UPDATED: Architect Kellie Payne spends a lot of time focused on social outcomes from the designs she leads. In recent times that’s included a swimming pool for a girls school and a student housing complex, both challenging projects.
The thinking around the swimming pool is about building in rituals of health that work right through life. “How can swimming and other sports, even if they’re competitive, bring people together?
“Our children are the most disenfranchised generation that’s ever come through, and so how do we create moments in the real world where they connect and discover the value of community and social connection?”
Payne, director of Bates Smart, who will share her insights at the next monthly leaders forum for The Fifth Estate on 6 May says some of the solutions include connecting to the natural elements to create memories that can last throughout life.
Metrics are important for ensuring good outcomes, she says, but there’s more involved.
“We’ve become so metric-driven that we are missing the opportunity for creativity. But I think that as architects, committing to the matrix is not enough. I think of the metrics as the role of the engineer or the role of the compliance team. This is what a business is looking to achieve, and here they’ve got their checklist that they’ve done it.
“But I think that we [as architects] bring creativity to the process. If we see the checklist as the end result, we are missing the opportunity that creativity brings.”
Student housing is a huge opportunity
With student housing, Payne asks, “How do you economically bring students together, provide accommodation whilst they’re at university, and allow them to focus on their studies?”
First, for this major project she’s working on with three colleges that will form a single development, is the logistical challenges of using cross laminated timber and aiming for Green Star certifications, along with the need to incorporate respect for Indigenous land.
On the social angle there’s the need to help generate social connections so working out the ideal size of cohorts to “bring together deans and residential advisors who can give the students pastoral care”.
Payne has sourced “a lot of work” on figuring out the ideal cohort size on a single flow to deliberately build community.
It looks be under 24 to 30 students per floor with one residential advisor and then a cohort of around the 100 to 115 mark.
“I think as architects, our responsibility is around these people coming from all over the world and all different backgrounds.
“They are exploring a foreign country, studying; it’s such an exciting time in your life, and our building should be helping beyond just providing accommodation, but helping them build the rituals.”
This involved spending lots of time designing attractive communal spaces and dining areas in sunny light filled areas, creating an ambience that’s like “a cat stretching in the morning – you’re going to want to sit in the sunniest spot”.
“We’ve located all of the stairs in the building on the external facade. So instead of being internal fire stairs, they’re external stairs, so they can have views and natural ventilation. We’re taking what was a fire stair and making it a communal space that they connect with, and then it lands right down in the breakfast area.”
Payne says: “We know their success is linked to whether they make a friend at university, and their mental health is linked to their social connection. We bring them down into the sunny spot for breakfast, and we are trying to get them to study out of the room, if we can provide them with a quiet study area.
Designing for Indigenous connection to country
Payne says it was a “beautiful experience” to meet with the Indigenous people to embed connections to Country for the site.
“We’ve been working with Indigenous elders of the site to map tree roots to make sure that we can keep those connections.
“For any trees that are being removed, we’re trying to harvest their seeds over the period so that we can regrow from that family of tree, and it can continue its lineage on the site as part of the indigenous connection to the country.
The meetings revealed how that part of Sydney had been a meeting ground for people all over New South Wales.
“Different groups would each have their own tree, a place where children were born
“So, this tree represented their lineage, and they’ve lost connection to which trees were which, meaning every tree could be that tree. This was really amazing to us because there’s a beautiful old fig tree right in the middle of the site, and the entire development is now designed around that fig tree as a meeting ground for the students.”
Payne recalls that their guide would walk over and pull off some leaves from a myrtle tree and rub them together – “and you smell them, it’s just this heat to your senses”.
“I think we can’t underestimate the impact of such moments on our nervous system and mental acuity.”
The creative play of social connections is infinite, she says.
Payne points to the outcomes of an ABC’s television program Old People’s Home for Teenagers where the unexpected blend of young and old sparked delight in both cohorts.
She says in the past religious institutions played the role of connecting people across the vast barriers we perceive in today’s world.
“They previously owned our schools, our meeting places and our hospitals and they used to bring multi-generations together through their stewardship.
“Now that we’ve got less of that and lost faith or trust in some of those institutions, how do we engineer that connection across generations?
“If you go into Italy, or parts of any community that prioritises community first, like a village, they have that great connection to each other. It’s when that village connection gets broken that you have those challenges.”
The big office challenge is not so big
Offices can also enhance community connection, Payne says. Some are underestimated.
“I’m thinking of a commercial development we did in Pyrmont. It was only a small 20,000 square metre office building, but it had dual entries on different levels, one through a cafe, one straight into the lobby.
“It had small business units on the side, ideal for small businesses or creatives to take, and then at the back, it had a childcare centre. So, every different facet of this building had a community focus.
“Even things like cafes at the ground plane are amazing opportunities. We were working on a major commercial tower at the moment in the city, and so much work is put into the civic generosity.”
This involves “bringing initiatives to the ground floor, making spaces for everyone and bringing retail to the front of the square to activate it, getting clear glass in the lower level so people can look into the work area.
“You get that kind of Italian village feel.”
“We want to create a grand urban [space] where people can come and sit and have lunch and congregate together, so instead of being a massive city block, we’re cutting through.”
People are coming back to the city
Payne says people are on the way back to offices in Sydney and notes a 20 per cent increase in office attendance.
“I think this is partly because the city has come to life. We now have the metro, and the developments above it have really amazing ground-level spaces full of activated retail and public art.”
BatesSmart is currently working on moving the stock exchange into Sydney’s Martin Place area and that will enhance the buzz of the city enormously.
Takeaways
“If you get to design buildings in the city, it’s a responsibility, and you should take it as such.
“Ultimately, it’s about thinking through the experience of the end-user, who is often not considered first. There are so many people to consider when you’re designing.”
Hear Kellie in person – get your tickets to the next monthly Leaders Forum 6 May, Sydney