A preview of Peter Cook's Bond school of architecture.

Here is a sneak preview of Bond University's new architecture school building designed Peter Cook's office CRAB Studio. Cook co-founded the practice with Gavin Robotham after he retired as head of the Bartlett School of Architecture. The building is slightly behind schedule due to some of the wettest weather on record for the Gold Coast of Australia. But who will remember the delays when the building is completed in a month or so? The building has some rather special double curved structural concrete scoops that add sensational drama to the internal exhibition spaces. It is going to be very intimidating for students having critiques in there! Externally, a roof resembling overlapping lilly pads provides some solar shading with interesting steel “eye-lids” over some of the windows on one façade doing the rest. The plethora of wood-looking columns around the entrance and periphery are actually steel columns clad in timber. They are apparently a memory of the trees that were felled to make way for the new building. The building should be finished in mid October 2013, with an official opening in early 2014. The architecture school at Bond University is just a couple of years old. In the last three months or so, it has begun to produce some interesting work thanks in part to its visiting teachers from the UK! Christopher C. Hill.