Walert House, RMIT Bundoora | Richard Middleton

Walert House, RMIT Bundoora is built around a social and educational central ‘core hub’ with two accommodation wings branching out from this. The hub is a timber structure, using laminated veneer lumbar (LVL), while the accommodation wings are clad in zinc and powder coated aluminum. The central hub is a double-height space for presentations, functions and includes a cinema screen that is concealed in the ceiling. The building sits within an Aboriginal heritage trail and surrounded by 400-year-old red gums and scarred trees and located in the Northwest sector of the Bundoora campus and is bordered by McKimmies Road.

Richard Middleton Architects worked closely with the Project Arborist to ensure appropriate tree projection zones for these trees, some of which hold particular cultural significance to the local indigenous community.

Walert House, operated by Unilodge, provides accommodation for 372 students and is the University’s first on campus accommodation building. The broad mix of unit types, single bedrooms, share rooms and apartments for undergraduate and postgraduate students, offer a genuine choice to students and appeal to those remaining on campus over the course of their studies.