Monash University Chancellery ARM Architecture

Built on the land of the Wathaurong people of the Kulin nation

ARM Architecture’s design for the new Chancellery at Monash University’s Clayton campus in Victoria is a delightful building dripping with history. Ian McDougall, one of ARM Architecture’s founding directors, explains that the intent was “to make it feel like it was a building that was already there, but with a new refurbishment.” The four-storey building is a vast improvement on its 1960s Brutaliststyle predecessor, by Godfrey, Spowers, Hughes, Mewton and Lobb (1965). Designed in the tradition of a mid-century corporate headquarters, its form and character take cues from the original Clayton campus setting and are an affectionate ode to the former Chancellery. It recasts, reuses and reimagines fragments from the original building and, by doing so, etches its radical past into the new fabric. While the ground level provides a more permeable and connected