Concrete on Campus: Material Values of Late Modern Campus Buildings

Abstract

Abstract: Late modern concrete buildings that were a cornerstone of post–World War II university expansion in Australia are reaching a point where they require conservation, adaptation or replacement. Material perspectives reveal the entanglement of cultural and environmental values in managing the legacy of this building stock. The University of Queensland St. Lucia campus is taken as a case study to examine this entanglement. At UQ, the cultural heritage values of its modernist buildings are not well understood or acknowledged through existing heritage legislation. At the same time, the decarbonization agenda presents compelling reasons to keep and maintain buildings, particularly concrete ones with high embodied energy, despite the challenges presented by carbonation to the longevity of reinforced concrete as a material. In this article we explore how a material view both advances and complicates understanding of the UQ campus environment, alongside the potential for new digital tools to integrate qualitative and quantitative data and give agency to the university as an ecological custodian of its environment. Through analysis of a selection of 1960s and 1970s exposed concrete buildings, we explore how material values change the imperatives of built environment custodianship, and how energetics is changing our understanding of architectural materials such as concrete.