Aesthetics and atmosphere were just as important as functionality in the design of the Noosa Visitor Information Centre.
The client, Sunshine Coast Regional Council and Tourism Noosa, wanted to ensure that the building was open, inviting and used natural materials, while also having separate areas for the staff and volunteers to engage with the public and work privately. Project manager from Hutchinson Builders, Michael Michell, says the main priorities for the development were its street appearance, openness, sustainability and making it an iconic structure. “It's very much art and architecture combined,” he says.
Thirty tonnes of steel were used to achieve these goals and played a key role in the complicated design of the one-storey Centre's roof, which was manufactured and distributed by OneSteel, with steel fabrication by Cooroy Engineering.
A three-storey surf club at the northern face of the building raised concerns that insufficient light would pass through to the centre. In response to this, the architects, Lindy Atkin and Stephen Guthrie, equal partners of Bark Design Architects, decided that a tall roof tilting up to the north was essential.
“In order to reach up so high to get the northern light in, we chose a steel frame that would be able to have a series of portals that could mean that you have the stiffness and rigidity in the frame without needing a whole lot of bracing walls,” Atkin says.
“What that means is that when you walk into the building there is a huge amount of natural light that just pours in. In the winter, because the sun's lower, it penetrates right into the space and you get the dappled light through the etched glass, and then in summer you get natural light, but it's not able to come into the space as a direct heating element.”
The roof's shape, which Michell likens to the Sydney Opera House, is folded and crimped like a leaf, meaning that steel was the best, if not the only building material suitable for its construction as it was able to achieve the spans and cantilevers required, which extended as far as 4m.
Atkin describes the use of steel for the framework and roof of the Noosa Visitor Information Centre as fundamental. “Trying to do that with timber would have looked really thick and chunky and wouldn't have had the lightness that we wanted to achieve,” Atkin says.
Steel was used not only as a structural material, but also as a design element. “The steel was actually used as a feature so a lot of it is exposed and seen in the building fabric. The architect really made a point of showing off the steel rather than just using it as a structure and then putting a fabric over it. A lot of the steel is visible and a lot of the raw connections are visible, so it has a very soft industrial feel to it,” Michell says.
“Due to the complex configuration of the steel structure, great care was taken to establish the connection points cast into the concrete slab to ensure the steel fitted correctly when delivered to the site. An engineer’s lifting sequence was established to ensure the safe erection of steel as there were some significant cantilevers to seal with.”
The site was also populated with substantial trees, which added to the complexity of the site, so significant importance was placed on installing the steel without damaging trees. Michell says, “Taken to the extreme, some of the steel was modified to suit tree limbs at higher levels, which helped the building blend and integrate with the surrounding vegetation.”
Stiff junctions and rigid connections could be achieved without requiring bracing members and the entire structural steel frame was completed on-site over three days by four people. According to Atkin, if timber was used it would have taken three or four weeks to put the frame together piece-by-piece, making the time and cost savings of steel considerable.
Not to mention its sustainability. “It's recyclable and it doesn't have a high embodied energy usage. Obviously timber probably has the least embodied energy usage to produce, but the advantage that steel has is that you can just use it again and again and again. If the building lasts 50 or 100 years, at the end of the day you can still take it away and reuse it whereas timber is passed its used-by- date by then,” Atkin says.
The Noosa Visitor Information Centre was recently awarded the Architectural Steel Building Design Award at the 2009 Australian Steel Design Awards for Queensland.
Danielle Bowling
