William Macmahon Ball Theatre, Faculty of Arts, University of Melbourne

This facility is a direct response to the university’s commitment to ensuring the physical campus remains the primary learning environment for Melbourne, regardless of developments in Learning. To this end, the Faculty of Arts was committed to creating a unique space that would offer students an engaging and memorable learning experience. The space expresses the belief in the value of students coming together in an inclusive forum to exchange views and knowledge for the collective benefit of the whole group.

The saturation of online resources has rendered the traditional lecture theatre archaic. Students want to feel connected to their peers, to their academics and teachers, and to the place where they learn. While traditional lecture spaces have students in fixed and tightly-spaced seating, listening to the lecturer’s amplified voice, at the heart of graduate coursework curriculum in the Faculty of Arts is focused on active learning, discussion and debate giving students a deeper and richer experience. The William Macmahon Ball Theatre fosters this way of learning. It supports holistic, shared and student-led learning.

The new space bespeaks respect for the student occupants. It has been undertaken with the explicit aim of creating a quality environment in every respect so as to enrich the student and reward their attendance at the class. Through subtle design interventions, the facility exceeds its primary role as a ‘discussion forum’ by enabling a range of other activity to take place in the central zone. With little effort, and due to a design which allows the movement of one of the teaching podiums, the central zone can become a ‘showcase’ for objects to be viewed and discussed; or it may be transformed into a ‘stage’ for role plays or other performances; or it may become a ‘workshop’ space for constructing models or other representative forms.

The unique atmospheric quality of the William Macmahon Ball Theatre embraces visitors with an overwhelming sense of light, quality, academia, privilege and the sense of being part of a strong and ambitious community of scholars.