Category: Arts careers

I was one of a small group of visitors invited to an early inspection of the new ECU City Campus.

It was a tour of a building site. We had to wear PPE. There is plastic protecting the carpet and cardboard taped up to protect some of the walls in high traffic areas. Workers were everywhere and tradies’ boomboxes blared from each floor.

Overall impression

So much thought has gone into this building. It is actually two buildings, joined by gangways in middle floors and the two buildings become one at the top. It reminded me of Boola Bardip. Lots of open space and connectivity. It seems to soar up and it feels spacious.

What’s missing:

• Coffee Shops: It may seem trivial, but there are no coffee shops in the building. Students wanting coffee will be forced to go out of the building to interact with people in the city.

• No big theatre: There is no big theatre. The Heath Ledge Theatre is only a few hundred metres away and it is envisaged that students will graduate from the smaller ECU studios into the big public theatres.

• No Parking: There is no parking at the campus. Public transport is the obvious way to get there. You come out of the Perth City Bus Port just metres from the front door. The Perth train station is across Yagan Square, a couple of hundred metres away.

What’s there:

• Bespoke Design The building has been designed for teaching. The theatres are designed so that lighting students or sound students or creative students are the clients, rather than an audience. Expert lecturers and students from ECU and Boorloo custodians were involved throughout the design process.  The final colours inside are going to reflect the colours of West Australian wildflowers.

• Dance Studio Floor The floors in the four dance studios are the best they could find from anywhere in the world. They were designed in England as were the sound panels on the ceiling of the double height rooms.

• Sound. Light. Action The best architects have consulted with the best creative practitioners to ensure the sound, lighting, theatrical teaching opportunities are the best in the world.

• Built on springs The building is vulnerable to vibration because it is built over the train line and bus station. It has been engineered to sit on a spring foundation like that used in earthquake zones. This will be a particular advantage for the high tech equipment in the building.

• Top floor services There is no room under the building for services, so they have been located in the top floors. This seems weird, but if they had been located on lower floors they would have disrupted the flow from one section to the next, which is a feature of the building.

Design

It feels like Boola Bardip. There are lots of open spaces and many hubs where you can sit and study. There are two main buildings connected with walkways on the lower floors and joined together at the top.

• Orientation: The creatives face Northbridge. Business, law and cyber security are on the city side.

• The entrance: The foyer off Yagan Square welcomes you with beautiful wooden bleacher like seating for public and students. An escalator to rival that in Boola Bardip draws you up into the building. The entrance ceiling is 40 metres high (don’t hold me to that) and to your left is an LED wall where students’ work will be showcased.

• Ground floor gallery. There is an art gallery on the ground floor where student art will be displayed. This is a proper gallery, open to the public. You can see into it from Yagan Square.

• Piano Museum In homage to the role pianos have played in early white settlement of Western Australia, there will be a museum of old pianos on the ground floor.

• Theatres: There are three theatres, all with outstanding sound proofing. The recital hall impressed me most with its beautiful wooden sound proofed and acoustically perfect walls and crafted wooden ceiling. The theatres are small with the layout focusing on teaching. The playhouse theatre has tiered seating, which will be perfect for productions for a small audience.

Learning Spaces

The library area is still a work in progress, so it was difficult to understand what it will look like. There are many open study zones throughout the building. The traditional lecture rooms are high tech, as would be expected in a future looking learning space.

Logistics

• The building is handed over to ECU on 19 December and staff will move in over the Christmas break.

• WAAPA courses, Business and Law, Science including some IT, and Arts and Humanities will be based at the City Campus.

• Education will move from Mt Lawley to the Joondalup campus.

• There will be 1000 staff working from there and the building has the capacity to support 9000 students.

• The campus will commence operations at the start of the 2026 academic year.

There are no WAAPA Summer School classes. 

Thanks to those who invited me. It is going to be amazing!!

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