Ceiling Heights and Site Fall/Contours

Due to the 1500mm fall from the south to the north of the site, I decided to have the main entry level positioned lower than the rest of the building. I think this would provide greater accessibility as there are no stairs to contend with before even entering the building.

In the existing archives, they have addressed the site fall through the use of a fill and stairs leading from the street level up to the entrance for the main entryway.

Based on the old archives, and as I felt it was important to make the height of the new building no taller than the old (in order to address restrictions based on the archives building's close proximity to Parliament House), I decided to use a floor-to-floor height of 3000 (with a floor-to-ceiling height of 2700) within the office spaces and the teaching/eating spaces.

As the old archives' central component of the building reaches a height of 3 stories (as opposed to 2 for the rest of the building), and due to this being the exhibition space in the new building, I decided to use the entire height of the three stories for 2 stories of exhibition space, giving the exhibition floors a floor-to-floor height of 4500.

As I wanted all the levels for each block to be interconnected, it became necessary to whip up a quick model so that I could see where the plates cut each other. The following images and sketches show ceiling heights and floor level differences.