Western Sydney University - Design + Detail the Future
Designing the Innovation Engine at Western Sydney University wasn’t just about engineering, it was about building a modular system that embodied the future of manufacturing.
Here at Stakk Studio, we love details. There are 21,528 fasteners holding the 8.6m ceiling installation together at Western Sydney University (we counted!). So how do you detail all the parts that make up such a large scale object and how does it get split up into something that can be sent to manufacturing?
A blank canvas… with a bulkhead
Initially an empty room, with no walls or furniture, we worked with HDR Architects to discuss how the room would come together and what space was available to us to work in the ceiling. The amazing team at HDR Architects are long time friends of the studio, collaborating with us on some of the most complex ideas. One of the key considerations was an existing concrete bulkhead running through our ceiling space that we would have to build around. The team at GPR Concrete did an excellent job of carefully scanning the ceiling slab to mark up hidden services and spaces we had to avoid when anchoring our installation.
Designing our parts meant working closely with all the services sharing the ceiling space such as lighting (NDY), fire engineering (Introba) and, sound (MNGD). Advanced Concepts Electrical were also instrumental in helping us coordinate power distribution throughout the installation. During our discussions, we realised that additional speakers would align more with our design principles. The project managers at Built were pivotal help in communicating modifications and coordinating the innumerable services and people that bring this space to life.
Design Principles
Working at this scale required a set of grounding design principles, as we detailed everything from anchoring a steel frame to a concrete slab, to adding provisions for future maintenance. Radial symmetry was a key part of our design, using multiples of six to create workable chunks for assembly, testing, install and maintenance. In total, we had six cone segments, 12 inner trays, 12 outer trays, and 24 cowling assemblies. ey could all be lifted or dropped into place. This was enabled by a focus on static loading. If something was loose, it would rest on its neighbouring parts instead of falling to the ground. This massively helped the install team because unsurprisingly, none of our staff were fans of holding a 1.8m wide tray above head height while trying to locate fasteners.
The core of our design was derived from a 2-tonne circular steel frame bolted and anchored into the ceiling via 18 dropper posts (six inner and 12 outer). A huge thanks to Nick and Soda at TTW who worked with us as we went through each dropper location, and carefully planned around the areas marked by the concrete scanners. This also included designing two custom droppers that sat on the edge of the ceiling bulkhead.
That frame underpinned the locations for the cone segments, trays, blades and cowlings that would be attached to it. While in theory, circles have excellent levels of symmetry, adding large PFC beams introduced offsets that added up quickly. We definitely spent a few afternoons chasing tails (in circles!) to figure out how things lined up before we integrated the ceiling services.
The Expertise
In designing for manufacture, we sat down with our suppliers and took our boots-on-the-ground mentality into learning from them. Many of them carried decades of experience in the areas of sheet metal manufacturing, 3D printing, CNC machining, and vacuum forming. These insights fed our growth and helped us make more conscious decisions in the way we approached manufacturing. Since the same hands that detailed our parts would be the ones assembling and installing them, we knew the time we invested into designing for manufacture would pay dividends during the assembly, install and maintenance stages. It’s almost karma of sorts, right? Blending our design principles into our industry knowledge resulted in a series of manageable segments that could be assembled by one person, installed by two people and a scissor lift, and easily lifted out of the installation for testing and maintenance.
Prototyping
No design process is entirely linear. We prototyped and iterated our way across the finish line; such is the life of a designer to look back on a big project they just finished and go “I would’ve done that differently.” That isn’t a flaw, it’s a product of constant learning. Sorting out the mechanics of the ceiling feature took various scales of prototyping, from bits of paper pinned together, to 3D models, to printed scale prototypes, to full-scale manufactured test parts. Each iteration brought lessons, some of which were interpreted by lying on the floor piecing together the moving parts (figuratively and literally). While testing one of our prototype cowling sections in the workshop, we noticed the afternoon sun passing through it, giving hints of the structure inside. After throwing some test LEDs inside, we realised the effect was much more exciting than the initial plan to paint the cowlings. It was another change to the final product, but the result was a much more immersive and engaging space that extends the effect in the blades.
The detailing stage was long, meticulous, and deeply collaborative. It brought together expertise from across disciplines and industries, proving that great design happens through dialogue, not in isolation. What began as an empty ceiling became a living piece of engineering; a fusion of craft, curiosity, and collaboration that reflects what Stakk does best. Now onto site.
