Lyons Architects is an Australian based creative practice that works design into the heart of everything they do. It is a team of enthusiastic designers who make architecture from the smallest and subtle ideas to the biggest and complex ones—be it practical, technological or visual ones. This talented team takes one deep into every creative discussion to deliver designs that shape, support, and serve communities all over Australia.
Their expertise includes street designs, cultural and community hubs, hospitals, law courts, educational and research institutes, most of which have been 5-star Green star rated.
Here are 15 amazing projects by Lyons Architects:
1. Prahran Square | Lyons Architects
Prahran, Australia; 10,000 sq m; 2019
This urban space design by Lyons Architects flexibly ebbs and flows with the mood of each day and the people that occupy it, allowing the community to define the meaning of the space. It brings opportunities to collaborate with the community, its cultures and artists to create a space that would appeal to a broad range of people. Two critical objectives met by this design are: creating a safe, flexible space for the public, and providing a solution for car spaces by housing two floors for parking.
This square is designed by recognizing the four corners as important gateways for pedestrians to pass diagonally through that space. From these four corners, nine unique spaces are created, each adding different value to the community. Serving as a cultural and recreational hub, the square has carefully been designed and engineered with sustainable strategies.
2. Hedley Bull Centre
Acton, ACT 2601, Australia; 4,915 sq m; 2007
Following the Lyons Architects’ vision to break open conventionally siloed academic buildings, this project design promotes interactivity and connection between staff, students, and visitors. Accommodating 3 colleges specializing in international relations and comparative politics, the design places visitors in the round and focuses on the negotiation of space, adapting, reflecting and shaping the DNA of the campus it inhabits, both internally and externally.
Generating a continuous loop, the hexagonal floor plan links together a series of shared spaces and dead-end corridors and transforms it. The colleges are vertically interconnected by open spiral timber staircases on each side of the building. The exterior is tightly wrapped with concrete panels with horizontal grooves and contrasting Australian timbers in the interiors. Thus, this design enriches cultural experiences along with academic ones.
3. Curtin University, Midland Campus | Lyons Architects
Midland WA, Australia; 3,050 sq m; 2019
Designed by Lyons Architects, this project marks a new education precinct for Curtin University. Enabling a flexible, collaborative university experience, the design houses state of the art learning and multi-disciplinary simulation spaces.
It is composed of four flat floor learning spaces with audio-visual and distributed learning capabilities on level 1; four immersive simulation sites, each with a separate collaborative pod complete with a one-way glass wall for observation and assessment on level 2; and relaxed student spaces, kitchen, staff work areas and meeting rooms with projecting balconies that provide students with external spaces on level 3. Open booths provide opportunities for informal collaborations and give access to fresh air and light from all levels.
4. Queensland Children’s Hospital
Brisbane, Australia; 95,000 sq m; 2014
This hospital design by Lyons Architects marks a contribution to the life and experience of the community, enabling unprecedented patient and family-centred care. Inspired by a ‘living tree’, this building incorporates the most advanced diagnostic, interventional and treatment facilities. The planning is based on principles like clear wayfinding, connections to the outside, nature, landscape and access to green spaces, a key element that supports wellness therapy.
This hospital thus creates a healing environment to promote well-being and engage young patients, their caretakers and the health workers.
5. Menzies Research Institute and Medical Science | Lyons Architects
Hobart Tasmania 7000, Australia; 9,057 sq m; 2014
This institute by Lyons Architects is the conception of an aspiration to deliver world-class laboratories, research, clinical research, and medical training facilities within one building. This institute is a fully integrated campus that enables key learning and research within medical science and contributes to the city of Hobart while bringing a vibrant knowledge economy to the city of Melbourne.
New generation teaching spaces are placed around a student-focused hub at the centre of the campus, encouraging social interaction between staff, students and researchers. Thus, inspired by its surroundings, this design strikes a balance between communicating with the historic, scenic environment and establishing a vibrant persona.
6. RMIT New Academic Street
Melbourne, Australia; 36,000 sq m; 2017
Bringing with itself new opportunities and experiences, this project aims to create a distinctive/diverse, city-centric educational urban-based campus. This interconnected campus design by Lyons Architects incorporates visual connections through balconies, green spaces and collaborative spaces, as the designers believed in the functional spaces being built up, rather than sprawling out.
With the use of sustainable materials, this cohesive campus enhances the student educational, interactive and engagement opportunities by providing world-class infrastructure, creating a sustainable eco-system.
7. Springvale Community Hub
Springvale, Australia; 3,800 sq m; 2020
It is a multifaceted project by Lyons Architects that reflects the unique identities of the residents of Springvale. It acts as a mirror, integrated and well-connected within a community when their qualities and identities are reflected in it. Communicating with its environment, this design curves around the site’s Red river gum trees, and is sustainable by supporting the community’s future.
Creating a connection from space to work to play and socialize, the design includes flexible common meeting spaces, outdoor activity area, a modern state of the art library featuring emerging technologies, a customer service area and rich landscaped green areas, and a cafe to meet, relax and share.
8. Yagan Square | Lyons Architects
Perth WA, Australia; 11,500 sq m; 2018
Yagan Square by Lyons Architects is a civic space, formed from the convergence of past stories of the site, creating a sense of place in an urban environment. Embodying the rich history of the site, it is the most popular community transit, meeting and celebration space with cultural significance. The square is composed of meeting spaces, a Digital tower, Market Places, playgrounds, landscape ecologies and large spaces for performances/events, which blend into the surrounding city.
‘The Walking Track Loop’, a key feature of the project, defines the Amphitheatre space, through the central meeting space, connecting the Horseshoe Bridge and café on the Market Place, the lift and central market stairs, moving past the urban forest. The design uses locally available materials, creating a living platform for dialogue, contributing to the life and experience of the city.
9. ACT Law Courts
ACT 2601, Australia; 18,700 sq m; 2019
This law court, designed by Lyons Architects, creates a welcoming environment that eases the pressure associated with the court experience. All public waiting spaces are designed to ease the tension and anxiety often associated with attending court. While warm colours and textures, natural light and exterior views offer moments of reprieve, its dispersed seating allows groups to find their own space. The need for a safe and secure environment for all visitors and staff was the driving factor.
The most important spaces with design features intended to alleviate stress are the intricately designed courtrooms. They feature views to nature on all three sides, maximising daylight and opportunities for reprieve. Thus, the design intends to make all its users feel respected, comfortable, safe and secure.
10. Royal Hobart Hospital (RHH) | Lyons Architects
Hobart TAS, Australia; 42,000 sq m; 2020
Complementing the purpose it serves, the RHH by Lyons Architects instils faith in the community that their local healthcare is world-class, providing the best care to the people of Tasmania. With Tasmania’s identity woven into the fabric of the RHH, its master plan includes the demolition of the existing building and a complete redevelopment of the campus, benefitting healthcare workers, patients and visitors both directly and indirectly.
Spread across 10 floors, the patient services are designed to make patients feel less like typical hospitals, creating relaxed and private environments. Views to the surrounding beauty of Hobart’s landscape, the use of bright colours, and increased natural light help in wayfinding and improved wellbeing.
The colours used to reference the surrounding landscape and locally available materials (granite, sandstone, blackwood and Tasmanian Oak) are used throughout.
11. Swanston Academic Building
Melbourne, Australia; 35,000 sq m; 2012
It is a campus not only deeply embedded in the fabric of the city but born from it. Taking design inspiration from its surrounding urban environment, the building places students at the centre of its design and has become an international benchmark for research into new learning spaces. This project by Lyons Architects sets a benchmark for the design of learning and teaching spaces. All spaces are designed to be student-centred, promoting interconnection and collaborative work.
A gradient of different learning spaces on each level of the building is designed to meet the long-term needs, reflecting the diversity of education. Sustainable strategies used in the design, ranging from the campus scale, through to building elements, down to individual student spaces, resulting in a 5-star Greenstar (Design) rating.
12. Broadmeadows Children’s Court
Broadmeadows, Australia; 1,600 sq m; 2015
Designed by Lyons Architects, this court reflects a new therapeutic service model that improves the experience for families and young people. This design brings together courtrooms, collaborative spaces, and support services for the Family Division of the Children’s Court.
The project incorporates a separate and safe environment for children, discrete rooms for families and practical working space for legal practitioners and caseworkers, lessening stress and disruption to children’s wellbeing. The court will be a venue of innovation, with an emphasis on collaborative and constructive court processes to assist in decision making. The wayfinding leads to the courtrooms, which are large and naturally lit with nature views.
Composed of two levels, the ground floor consists of all public functions, while the upstairs ‘attic’, an innovation of the new service model, allows children to visit the court having to experience minimum stress.
13. Melbourne Brain Centre | Lyons Architects
Melbourne, Australia; 20,000 sq m; 2011
Enabling world-class research into the brain, as Australia’s largest brain research facility, this design by Lyons Architects accommodates over 500 neuroscientists and two major research institutes in one collaborative endeavour. The design promotes connectivity, allowing researchers from multiple scientific disciplines to research and discover within arm’s reach of one another.
Openness and connectivity being its major philosophies, large, flexible laboratories and open planned workspaces promote collaboration and the transfer of knowledge. With a double-height foyer, café, bookshop auditorium, a DAX gallery and atriums, this brain centre aims to be a leader in the research and study of the brain.
14. New Horizons
Clayton, Australia; 20,884 sq m; 2013
This research building, by Lyons Architects, is an integrated and multi-use design that allows co-located academics to form a collaboration, connecting students and researchers with new technological innovations. The ground floor foyers connect the entrances like a public street, the three internal atria provide views into the research spaces. Occupant comfort and productivity combine to create a work environment that facilitates research.
The surrounding context of the building attracts people to the north edge of the campus while a façade clad in bright aluminium breaks the scale of the building and collects water as a part of an integrated, innovative sustainability strategy.
15. Green Chemical Futures (GFC) | Lyons Architects
Clayton, Australia; 9,500 sq m; 2014
Visually inspired by molecular structures, this science building design by Lyons Architects bonds the three elements of chemical education, research and practice in a singular form, with collaboration the central focus of the building. The collaborative facility combines undergraduate teaching laboratories with complementary student support, including a media conference room, tutorial space and group-focused student hubs.
The design of an infinitely looping white circulation path links teaching, research and commercial chemistry into a holistic experience, while Modular furniture solutions facilitate group activity throughout the building. Thus, combining teaching, research and industry in one design, GFC is the catalyst for a new, sustainable future for chemistry.
