Ian Brewster and Andrew Hjorth are partners in the business of architecture and have a strong passion for what they do. Situated in Sydney in the Surry Hills area for the last seven years with a staff of 35, Brewster Hjorth Architects have been creating beautiful and innovative building designs for clients over much of Australia.
THE STORY BREWSTER HJORTH ARCHITECTS began in 1984, when Ian Brewster founded the company at the age of 27 with two friends under the name Jones, Brewster, Reagan Architects. At the time, the economy was weak and it took a couple of years for the company to become firmly established. By the end of the 1980s, the company grew to 40 staff and the projects were plentiful. Then, with the property industry crash of 1991, the company shrunk back to 10 people. Over the next 10 years, the original partners Jones and Reagan left and other strong participants in the company stepped forward to fill more substantial roles. The company’s name was changed to Brewster Hjorth Architects and Ian Brewster and Andrew Hjorth have been cultivating their company ever since. Ian Brewster shared his experiences with some of his favourite and most rewarding projects with AUBJ.
A Townsville Treasure
For Ian Brewster, his renovation work on the 50- year-old library at James Cook University was particularly gratifying because of the history behind the building. The library is called Eddie Koiki Mabo Library, named after a famous indigenous Australian who fought for the rights of his people to own the land they had passed down through generations. He dedicated his life to fighting for indigenous land rights and won the battle in the courts just shortly after he passed away. Eddie Mabo worked at the docks in Townsville, sat on the Local Council and also worked as a groundskeeper at the university where the library stands.
Once the library was renamed, the university decided to update the building and create more of a student commons and IT centre for their students. After four years, stage one is complete and Brewster Hjorth Architects have transformed the building into a major focal point for the campus. Brewster comments, “We wanted to celebrate the importance of Eddie Mabo’s connection with the building as a grounds man as well as create a new ground breaking IT centre for the university.” He explains that the function of all libraries is changing and his designs are reflecting the shift from a place to read books to multifaceted centres. “The Eddie Mabo Library is not a traditional library. We transformed it into an enormous student commons for group study and collaboration, a 24 hours commons with food and drink and a technological space with computers and full digital access to all university resources.” To achieve this goal, they condensed the area for housing books. Brewster Hjorth Architects was awarded a heritage award for their work thus far as phase one is now complete. The University will implement phase 2 and 3 in the near future.
An Innovative Library in Cooroy
The library project that was completed in Cooroy by Brewster Hjorth Architects was a smaller building but has won awards for its inventive design. Brewster explains that Cooroy is a beautiful service town that is set within a dramatic landscape of extinct volcanic peaks that are scattered around dense lush forest. The central area of Cooroy has old previously used timber mills that had been dismantled and overtaken by natural growth. It was decided to reconvert the large old timber mill area into a new library and tourist destination with parkland, to link into the newly built art gallery. The location of the library is on the side of a hill to look out onto the new parkland. “Our concept was to dig the library into the hillside and then extend the open air community spaces over the grassed roof of the new building,” states Brewster. The library has a double curve that follows the contours of the hill. The lower side, which is exposed to the footpaths, is linked to the Cooroy town with covered verandas along the streets. The internal environment is semi-underground but very light filled because there are numerous south facing windows.
“The Library itself is designed based on environmental principals,” says Brewster. Specifically, it has displacement air conditioning which is released up through the floor. The air is taken into an underground labyrinth that pre cools the air; so much less energy is used. Then, the air is processed through an air conditioning system at low energy that is then delivered through the floor at a low volume and mixes with the warm air. He further explains, “This system is environmentally friendly using about a third of the energy of conventional air conditioners and it provides a very pleasant temperature.” Also, on part of the roof that is not covered, there is an enormous array of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells which adds to
the building’s efficiency. “This is a fantastic internal environment with a beautifully robust rural industrial aesthetic on the outside,” comments Brewster proudly about this project.
The Rural Influence of Wagga Wagga
Brewster states his favourite of all his projects to date is the School of Dentistry at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga. Located in a rural setting in south western NSW, the campus is large and expansive with an abundance of bushland with sparse trees, grasslands and rocky hills. He comments, “The University wanted to construct a signature building that represented their rural connections, so we celebrated the natural character rather than trying to develop it all.” In addition, the building of a teaching facility for Dentistry at the Wagga campus was an attempt by the Federal Government to boost the delivery of dental services to western NSW. Accordingly, the University received a grant to build two new major dental buildings, one in Wagga Wagga and one in Orange, as well as local clinics in the smaller centres such as Bathurst, Dubbo and Albury.
The location of the Wagga Wagga building is at the entrance to the campus. Brewster describes the traditional Australian rural sheds or barns made principally of corrugated iron as his main inspiration. Furthermore, when he was on location in the Kimberleys he was introduced to double roof system that he wanted to employ in Wagga. In particular, it is a second roof above the first, similar to a tent fly that allows the air to flow between the two roofs and to provide shade, protection and insulation. Brewster developed a design with two roofs with a steel framed building with corrugated iron as diagonal panels in layers. “The end product was a building with a rural aesthetic but also very high tech prefabrication,” he adds.
Another very interesting aspect of the building was the lower base level, which was constructed out of gabions, a construction technique used in freeway design and city work. Brewster explains that gabions are made by filling large two by two metre cages out of flexible wire mesh with local rock. “We built dry rock walls inside these cages and then set the cages on top of one another. It is a great design because it provides a solid wall, has fantastic thermal properties for insulation and also relates closely to the environment by using local rock,” says Brewster. The final composition of this building was incredibly striking. It has won many local and national awards and was runner up for an international award.
Brewster Hjorth Architects produces about 20 completed projects each year, which allows the directors to have a hand in all of them. As is evident by the projects described by Brewster, his company provides their services for many different sizes of assignments, which range from studies to buildings. In discussing Brewster’s life’s work with him, it is clear that he takes great pleasure in creating beautiful and functional designs for his clients.