The University of Sydney
Women’s College Sibyl Centre
Historically, most Colleges are built of brick or stone – buildings of gravitas, set back from the street in immaculate gardens, designed to be revered. The University of Sydney’s Womens College is no different in that sense – yet it has always been radical.
listen close for footfall of dance
                                        here
        whose past and always presence
                                          rise and fall
                  as shadows flit across the warm earth
 
               grasses shimmying against the elegant arch
of a silvered trunk
                       an arm flung against a vast sky
 
the copper curve framing firmament
    beholding           this held place
                    this stirred ground
                       this birthing water
 
under dappled light the trees remember
                        gathered women
                   strong words
                       tender gestures
               and all these many stories
 
           build it up brick
       build it up glass
           build it up copper
let the light pour through
      let the past in
 
        push against the distancing divide
to bathe those faces in the sun
 
echoing with the sound of song and laughter
               the strength of a gentle touch
 
under the weight of trees
                                    and their knowing
       women
              and their gathering
dancing
          and this future
let the past in
By Jazz Money
(Translation #03 — The University of Sydney Women’s College Sibyl Centre)
more info
Our Master Plan proposed a circular envelopment of the 1960’s three-wing Langley Building, magically forming a tangent to the heritage listed Main Building. It re-imagined Langley as a circular whole, with three triangular courtyards, and enabled the sensitive siting of the Sibyl Centre.
 
Info
Client:
The Women's College
Location:
Land of Gadigal people
Camperdown, NSW
Size:
900 m²
Status:
completed
Typology:
Education
Quotes
To consult with an architect who is deeply engaged with an organisation’s heritage, personality, unique character and potential futures, is to work at the pinnacle of successful design solutions. The Sibyl Centre at the Women’s College within the University of Sydney is a unique consequence of intelligent investigation of an iconic feminist place of learning. Sibyl is now a persuasive and beautiful reflection of past aspirations and a prophecy for ambitions to come. m3architecture is a co-developer of imagination, emotion, purpose and aesthetic sensibilities.
Dr Amanda Bell AM, Former College Principal
The design successfully combines various attitudes to public and private – it melds community and connectedness, actual and perceived safety, openness and protection.
Good Design Australia Awards Jury Citation
Cited
Awards:

2020 Good Design Award ® Winner: Architectural, Commercial and Residential Design. The Women's College Sibyl Centre, The University of Sydney

Publications:

2021 Sibyl Centre, The Women’s College within the University of Sydney, in Ringer, R. (Ed.). (2021). Materiality 2021. Dry Press Publishing. pp. 204-211.

For the 21st birthday of the College, a play was written entitled A Mask, performed on the front lawns in 1913. The play’s protagonist is Sibyl – an oracle who introduces great women from history, to foretell the future of women. A beautiful sepia photograph of the performance of the play remains. The women look back and forward framing and informing the present.
The photograph, used as a repeat motif crowns the building in copper and embodies the College motto – Together.
The Sibyl Centre brings people together – socially, intellectually, physically – auditorium, studio, and spaces for tutorials, study and music practice.
Reminiscent of an ancient frieze, the ghosts of the women now perform in the garden in perpetuity.

Sibyl is an architectural oracle – casting back then forwards, projecting exciting opportunities for the College into the future.