The University of Queensland's campus in St. Lucia is famed for its jacaranda trees: their springtime flowering is a key cultural and environmental event in the life of the campus.

To collapse the distance between this new marketing-focused office space in Washington, D.C., and the central campus in Australia, we clad the office’s central space in perforated wood screens featuring an abstracted pattern of the jacaranda in bloom.

Entry space diagram.

The central space binds and connects all of the secondary spaces: office, conference and work rooms. There is no additional circulation; all movements pass through the central space.

The central space controls the flow through the office, so movement always passes through the multihemispheric jacaranda grove.

Other spaces are kept neutral to allow the jacaranda to shine.

Interchangeable, modular furniture design keeps the office space clean and flexible.

When the screen panels are backlit, there is the sensation of viewing the flowering tree.

Viewed from inside the offices where screens are layered with transparent glass walls, there is the sensation of looking through a jacaranda grove.

The space projects the University’s identity and experience through an act of architectural and environmental branding.

Hot-desking in the multipurpose room.