One of three design firms appointed to create a learning space in a vacant Brutalist library building at Macquarie University, Woods Bagot undertook an extensive student consultation process, including a web-based survey, workshops and interactive presentations.

Woods Bagot’s interior design response used this student feedback as the key driver of the design of MUSE – or the Macquarie University Spatial Experience – the unique name and brand was part of the Woods Bagot pitch and ultimately was used for the entire project.

To meet the needs of a next-generation student, Woods Bagot designed a dynamic space that facilitates a technologically enabled, fluid mode of social learning and collaboration with walls and lighting running on tracks. The transformable space uses recycled desk tops to give them a new life, re-invigorating the existing building with new life and purpose.

The space encourages serendipitous encounters with an aesthetic that draws on raw and recycled materials from the industrial and natural world, including hundreds of old desks repurposed as moveable screens.

This mutable, temporary education environment is designed to enhance students’ educational, social, intellectual and cultural experience of studying at Macquarie University.
MUSE also features spaces designed by Bennett Trimble and NBRS+ Partners, as well as a student connect zone designed by BNMH.

https://www.woodsbagot.com/projects/muse-macquarie-university-spatial-experience