This project, a collaboration between Kosloff Architecture, artist Callum Morton, and Monash Art Projects (MAP), reimagines the deteriorating Modernist façade of the 1968–70 Stephenson & Turner-designed Science and Psychology building at Monash University. Conceived as an opportunity to critically engage with the legacy of 1960s Modernism, the project employs adaptive reuse to extend the building’s life while radically transforming its identity. A new external skin preserves the original structure’s thermal mass, enhances solar performance through integrated shading, and significantly reduces material waste. Importantly, the intervention was achieved without the need to decant staff, students or ongoing research projects, representing a major cost and operational efficiency for the university.
The project explores a series of façade strategies that play with themes of concealment, exposure, and temporal layering. The scheme treats the new façade as a lifted architectural curtain, revealing a constellation of coloured glazed bricks and a sculptural entry portal inspired by a tipped laboratory beaker—at once a reference to scientific research and a metaphorical passage into the building’s modernist origins.
The project embeds public art directly into the architecture, aligning with the University’s Public Art Strategy while reasserting the value and relevance of its modernist fabric.
