GRIFFITH UNIVERSITY and its LANDSCAPE
by Roger Johnson, University Site Planner, aided by Sam Ragusa and Neil Thyer
originally published Landscape Australia 1/81 February 1981 Page 41-50
part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / photos / introduction
Introduction
Griffith, along with Murdoch in WA, was the last of the new universities of the Martin era. It was launched two years before the axe fell on university expansion and it was soon apparent that Government wished that the two new universities had never been started. Despite these regrets, Government has provided just enough funds to support growth into a small, but viable, institution.
None of this cliff-hanging future was known to the newlyappointed University Planner as he stood on the site in March 1972. Apart from an enormous and uncompromising ring-road built a few years previously to serve a plan prepared by James Birrell, the then University Architect for the University of Queensland, the site was quite virgin. It looked as it must have looked before man set foot in Australia.
His uppermost thought at that time was his brief that in three years time, five hundred students were to be able to walk into a working and workable institution. To meet such a tight construction period he realised there would not be much time for conceptualising. Within a month he and his offsider, Kelvyn Crump who joined Griffith from the University of Queensland, had placed themselves as the first components on a critical path programme that was to determine the action over the next few years.
Prior to 1972 a certain number of decisions had already been taken: Planning for the establishment of a second university institution in Brisbane, to have been part of the University of Queensland, began in 1963. In 1965, a 177 ha site was chosen near Mt Gravatt in an area which has since been named Nathan.
In December 1970, the Queensland Government allowed the University of Queensland's responsibility to lapse and appointed an Interim Council to advise it on the establishment of a university. At the first meeting of the Interim Council in January 1971, the then Minister for Education, Mr A. R. Fletcher, announced that the University would be named after Sir Samuel Griffith, a former Premier and Chief Justice of Queensland, and Chief Justice of Australia.
It was decided that the development of Griffith University should proceed so that the first students could be taken at the commencement of the 1975 academic year.
Aerial view of the Griffith University Campus from the south. At lower left is the University Oval and main gateway on Kessels Road. At lower right is the Recreation Centre. The Housing Village is in the centre. North of the Ring Road is the Academic Centre.
All photos by Griffith University.
Academic Philosophies and Organisational Structure
Griffith University became Brisbane's second University the sixteenth to be established in Australia.
From the outset, Griffith planned to offer an alternative kind of tertiary education to that already available in the other two Queensland universities. The Interim Council therefore decided, in early planning stages, that the university would provide not only for specialised academic study, but also for the general educational development of its students. Students would thus be given the opportunity to obtain an idea of the general scope of knowledge and to understand the place of the more specialised aspects of their own studies within it. Hence programmes of study, leading to a bachelor's degree of the University, would involve an integrated, multi-disciplinary and problem-oriented approach, rather than the more conventional concern for the traditional specific subject areas.
As a consequence, the University adopted the "School" rather than the department as its basic academic unit, responsible for the principal teaching, research and community services activities of the University. Four Schools were initially established: Australian Environmental Studies, Humanities, Modern Asian Studies, and Science.
These, together with the general divisions, formed the basic organisational units of the University, having close access to one another, executively through the ViceChancellor and, on a policy level, through the Committees of Council. In 1980, the School of Social and Industrial Administration began teaching and became the fifth school of the University.
A planned population of 8000 students using the campus - in Schools not larger than 1500 staff and students - was expected to provide a social and physical environment which would encourage the integration of staff and students, and ensure the most effective support for learning. This set of planning parameters has changed due to the declining birth rate and now it is envisaged that the University will achieve an ultimate population of 4000 students by the turn of the century. School sizes are not likely to exceed 600 staff and students with some Schools being as small as 400 staff and students.
Since 1973, the physical development of the site has been the principal task of the University's Site and Buildings Division initiated in 1972 by Roger Johnson and headed from 1973-78 by Alan Cole and since 1978 by Sam Ragusa. Kelvyn Crump has been the University Architect since 1972 and Neil Thyer, the University Landscape Architect. These people have been ably backed by a dedicated band of project officers and the curator/groundsman and his staff of gardeners.
part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / photos / introduction
