The UQ Oral Health Centre is set to be Australia’s largest and most advanced tertiary oral health facility. It will be the home for academics and researchers, leading practitioners and top tier students. The centre is located at the UQ Herston campus on Bramston Terrace and is positioned alongside the School of Medicine and School of Population Health.
Students will have access to over 150 dental chairs distributed across 11 clinics covering the full oral health spectrum. This $120 million facility, supported by a $104 million Federal Government grant, will help improve dental health and have general health benefits for all Queenslanders.
The centre was designed by Cox Rayner Architects in association with Hames Sharley and Riddell Architects and incorporated large public spaces and various walkways leading visitors and students to different clinics around the centre. To light these public spaces and walkways, a catenary lighting system was envisaged to provide warm contrast and directional lighting from a suspended cable net. This lightweight structural solution design by Ronstan Tensile Architecture uses ACS2 cables with eye swaged ends finished to custom central rings. The result is suspended luminaires which blends seamlessly with the surrounding bush setting, and adequately lights the large expansive spaces without the need for cold and sterile blanket flood lighting.
The landscape design forms a large part of these public spaces and contributes greatly to the overall impact of the modern architecture. The architect engaged was Andrew Green from Gamble McKinnon Green (now formally a part of RPS). Specified to work cohesively with the architecture, Ronstan AGS1V wire trellises were arranged in irregular diagonal patterns to create a striking visual impact initially, and then soften the structure as the plant growth expands over time. The stainless steel standoffs of the trellis system were installed to concrete elements and over feature stone cladding, which creates a high end finish.
Our installers lead by our project team liaised directly with the head contractor Lend Lease to deliver the outstanding results pictured, and was completed for the centre opening in September 2014.
