Where complex and innovative buildi

Where complex and innovative building designs are involved there is an inherent need for collaborative and innovative problem solving amongst project participants. In turn, often there is no single driver or individual beneficiary of the innovations required as outcomes benefit the whole project team. The new Frank Gehry building for an Australian University [name omitted] offers a useful case in point. Its complexity is apparent in its radical shape: the floor plates have curvilinear edges resembling the shape of an amoeba while the same random curves also apply vertically over the full fac¸ade height of this 13 storey building (Forsythe, 2015). These complex three-dimensional undulations are sheathed in traditional clay brickwork, a material not really suited to such distortion. In turn, large expanses of the brick skin are corbelled ranging from convex to concave shapes as well as undulating laterally
and vertically to produce fissures and crevices intersected by glass curtain walls. This use of brickwork is unique both to this building and within Frank Gehry’s existing oeuvre and, consequently, the project team had no prior experience to draw upon.