Background

Following the exploration and mapping of pastoral runs in the Mackay district in the early 1860s, the fertile land was soon reduced to smaller selections. It was found that the region was particularly suited to the growing of sugar cane and by 1870 the production of sugar was the region's principal industry. The development of the industry was assisted by the opening of a State Nursery in 1889. Originally built to explore the suitability of diverse forms of agriculture, the "Lagoons" site became the centre for research into cane varieties and more efficient methods of production. Renamed the Mackay Sugar Experiment Station and including laboratories and residences, it was transferred to the Te Kowai mill site in 1935.^[1]

The Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations had been formed in 1900 as part of the Queensland Department of Agriculture and Stock with its work financed by levies on sugar growers and millers, matched by government funding. It co-ordinated the research carried out in the three sugar-growing regions of Mackay, Cairns and Bundaberg comparing cane varieties, sampling soils and fostering better farming and irrigation methods. Millers, represented by the Australian Sugar Producers' Association, became increasingly dissatisfied with their lack of control over the direction and activities of the Bureau. This was somewhat deferred by the formation of the technology branch of the Bureau.^[1]

Established in 1929, the Queensland Society of Sugar Cane Technologists held its first conference at Cairns in 1930, convened by Norman Bennett of the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations. This was after preliminary meetings of the representatives of 16 sugar mills, six engineering firms and the Central Cane Prices Board. Other absentee mill owners were reputedly uncertain about disclosing trade secrets that such an alliance might bring but the formation of the group was in the face of "stark ruin, with overseas prices on which cheap labour countries could not exist. To some it appeared that the expansion of the previous period had been a mistake..." a situation which was to repeat in years to come. By 1948 both the Queensland Cane Growers' Council and the Australian Sugar Producers' Association were again concerned and angry because the Bureau had lost a string of highly skilled personnel [including two directors], to more highly paid jobs.^[1]

In 1949, the Australian sugar industry comprised mainly small cane farms located along the continent's tropical and sub-tropical Queensland and New South Wales coastline. The 5.5 million tonne cane crop, almost entirely grown in Queensland, was crushed by 34 raw sugar mills, most of which were owned co-operatively by growers. The highly regulated sugar industry was still recovering from material and labour shortages caused by World War II and was endeavouring to reassert its position in the world marketplace as a steady, consistent supplier of raw sugar. To achieve this goal, the industry's leaders determined they would have to expand cane production and the factories would have to improve sugar recovery and increase processing rates. The key was a speedy improvement in technological standards. As the government refused to entertain a proposal to place the Bureau of Experiment Stations outside the public service the Sugar Producers' Association formed a committee to draft the constitution for a new sugar industry funded and controlled research institute.^[1]

Proposal and design

Sugar Research Limited was incorporated on 22 February 1949 with 22 companies representing 24 mills as original subscribers, although some smaller mills joined soon thereafter and the Colonial Sugar Refinery provided an annual payment. The inaugural board of Sugar Research Ltd first met in March 1949 with its most pressing tasks being the appointment of a director and establishing a centre for research.^[1] George Shaw, a future federal MP, was deputy chairman and a frequent spokesperson.^[2]

Dr Henry William (Bill) Kerr, who had joined the Bureau of Sugar Experiment Stations in 1928, progressing to be the director from 1933 to 1943, was appointed the first director of the Sugar Research Institute (1949–61). Kerr was the driving force behind the establishment of the institute and well known in the Australian sugar industry for his important achievements. He developed and implemented soil analytical procedures for the assessment of available phosphorus, potassium and total replaceable bases. He introduced to sugar agriculture a system of replicated experiments, with statistical analysis and interpretation of results. Kerr was a member of the Queensland Society of Sugar Cane Technologists (from 1979 the Australian Society of Sugar Cane Technologists) from its establishment in 1929 until his death in 1992.^[1]

The board decided to establish the Sugar Research Institute's central laboratories in Mackay, as an acknowledgement that Mackay in 1949 was both the largest sugar growing district (out of the three main sugar growing areas – Bundaberg, Cairns and Mackay) as well as being the geographical centre of the Australian sugar industry. The board invited Dr Karl Langer to discuss building plans.^[1]

Karl Langer was born in Vienna in 1903 where he lived until migrating to Australia in 1939 with his wife Gertrude. Langer studied architecture in Vienna graduating in 1926. During this time he had worked in the office of Josef Frank, who was to become well known in Swedish modernism. In 1933 Langer was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy for his thesis entitled "Origins and Development of Concrete Construction".^[1]

At the outbreak of World War II, Langer and Gertrude arrived in Sydney in May 1939 proceeding to Brisbane in July. Langer left employment with Queensland Railways in 1946 to establish his own architectural practice. He worked throughout Australia and was the initiator of many influential urban design ideas such as the site for the Sydney Opera House and the pedestrianisation of Queen Street. He was the designer of buildings such as Main Roads Building, Spring Hill; St Peters Chapel, Indooroopilly; Lennon's Broadbeach Hotel on the Gold Coast, and worked in the regional centres of Queensland as an architect, town planner and landscape architect.^[1]

The name Karl Langer is now synonymous with modernist architecture in Queensland and his connection with Mackay predates the building. Langer had been offered the position of assistant town planner in the Brisbane City Council in 1944 but the controversy and publicity surrounding this appointment brought him to the attention of the Mackay City Council which commissioned him to revise that city's town plan.^[1]

Langer was also an acquaintance of the secretary of the Sugar Research Institute and was engaged to design the building with offices, boardroom, drawing office and a library and lecture room on the ground floor. The first floor was to house research laboratories. The design provided a single storey utility building, an annexe to the main structure, containing workshops, stores and a machinery room. Later, a second wing could be added to the main building providing additional workshops and laboratory space to cater for expansion of the research institute.^[1]

A residence for the director was planned next to the laboratories. According to the original plans for the main building and utilities building the tender for the director's house was described as being "under a separate tender." However this may refer to the construction of the building being under a separate tender rather than its design which is also attributed to Langer. Mrs Betty Kerr, HW Kerr's wife, discussed with Langer the need for some alterations to the design of the residence. One particular change related to the need to block the view to the kitchen from the front door. Prior to Mrs Kerr requesting this change a person at the front door was able to see through to the kitchen.^[1]

Langer's plans also provided for the landscaping of the site as well as the provision of a caretaker's cottage. The caretaker's cottage is currently let to tenants. Whilst Langer's plans provided for a caretaker's cottage it is unclear if the existing building which was used as a caretaker's cottage was purpose-built or if the building was already existing when the land was purchased by the institute. The stylistic indicators of the building including its hipped roof, lack of sunhoods due to wide eaves and its corner casement windows suggest a date of mid to late 1930.^[1]

Langer's pioneering use of climatic design in Queensland can be seen in the main institute building in the decorative restraint evident in the facade detailing and composition, the efficient but spacious planning of the building and the consideration given to a northern orientation. The northern orientation allowed for improved shading in summer and better light in winter. With the laboratories located on the southern side of the building this orientation allowed for a more even distribution of light to these areas.^[1]

Post-war shortages of both skilled labour and materials caused costs to escalate. The new director insisted that the director's residence both accommodate his wife and family of five children plus their maid and "be of a type appropriate to the status of director" and suitable for entertaining guests from overseas. Escalating costs meant that Kerr was asked to modify his expectations and the institute building was completed in stages.^[1]

The sugar industry, in 1949, was on the threshold of the buoyant sugar markets of the 1950s and in 1950 Justice Alan Mansfield was appointed to head a Royal Commission for the orderly expansion of the industry. Most mills prepared ambitious plans.^[1]

The Institute in operation

The Sugar Research Institute – "a monument to the Australian sugar industry" – was opened on Saturday, 22 August 1953 by then Federal Treasurer, Sir Arthur Fadden. More than 100 official guests attended the opening during which Fadden stated that "there was no industry in Australia better organised than sugar production" and that "sugar is not only a Queensland industry, not only a national industry, but an international industry of great importance".^[1]

The building provided an environment for chemists and engineers to scientifically study the milling process in co-operation with its practical application. The institute's focus from its establishment was to find solutions to industry problems via a program of short-term research and strategic design and construction projects. As a non-government funded research institute, the Sugar Research Institute is comparably rare. CSR was involved in experimental research, so whilst the Sugar Research Institute is not the only example of a private research institution, it is still unusual.^[1]

The landscaping of the institute was part of Langer's design, which included the planting of royal palms (Roystonea regia) along the roadside perimeter. The palms were planted in 1954 (a total of 58 at the time) to represent each of the institute's member mills. The second half of the building, the mirror image of the first side, was completed to Langer's original design and opened in August 1966. Mackay architect Harold Vivian Marsh Brown prepared plans for the second stage of the building in 1963.^[1]

Twenty-five years after being established, Institute-researched improvements in mill technology had tripled sugar production. By 1972 the institute had developed improvements in cane transportation by improving scheduling, and reducing operating costs and capital expenditure; milling research that improved extraction through improved performance and reductions in capital expenditure; clarification studies that reduced losses and lime consumption; sugar quality; effluent treatment; elongated grain and filterability penalties and air pollution by developing suitable equipment to meet the standards set.^[1]

The institute's annual general meetings and technical conferences were always well attended providing opportunities for mill personnel to discuss any issues with factories and to liaise with colleagues. The meetings and conferences were held in the main building in the library/lecture hall on the ground floor, the ETS Pearce Library, until the Charles Young Conference Hall was opened. Eddie Pearce was the general secretary of the Australian Sugar Producers' Association and was a major contributor in the establishment of the Sugar Research Institute.^[1]

On 31 August 1973 the Charles Young Conference Hall and laboratories were opened by Rex Patterson then Minister for Northern Development. The hall and laboratories is located to west of the main building and is connected via a covered walkway. The building was named in honour of Charles Young in recognition of his services as founding chairman from January 1949 to August 1973.^[1]

The 1990s were a time of economic stringency and an uncertain future. Destabilisation in world markets and changes in US sugar import quotas led to industry restructuring and streamlining in areas such as sugar industry research funding. The Sugar Research Institute, whilst reduced in staff numbers and outsourcing some contracts continued its research and development.^[1]

As reported by the Environmental Protection Agency's Sustainable Industries Unit in October 2004, the institute developed more efficient condensers for sugar mills. Researchers at the institute had observed that some vapour condensers operated more efficiently than others, requiring less cooling water flow and subsequently less electrical power for the cooling water circuit. The institute obtained funding through the Sustainable Energy Innovation Fund to analyse the operation of several existing vapour condensers at sugar factories, to develop an improved condenser design to increase efficiency and to monitor the performance of two new condensers built with the new design.^[1]

Two prototype condensers were constructed and installed. Compared with conventional designs, the units achieved reductions in cooling water flow rates. By adopting design modifications, the institute estimated the cooling water flow would be reduced by up to 12%, yielding a proportional reduction in energy consumption for water pumping and cooling tower fans leading to annual energy savings. Besides the two prototype condensers three other condensers at Millaquin and Tully Sugar Mills were subsequently constructed and installed for the 2004 crushing season.^[1]

Individual researchers from the Sugar Research Institute have also received peer recognition, including the prestigious Sugar Industry Technologists Crystal Award presented to Dr Peter Wright in 2003. The Crystal Award is presented to individuals who have contributed notably to the technological advancement of the sugar refining industry.^[1]

Dr Wright began his career as a sugar technologist with the Sugar Research Institute in 1957. He is the first Queensland, and the fourth Australian to receive the Crystal Award. Sugar Industry Technologists Inc was founded in the United States in 1941 by several North American sugar refineries. It has since grown to become an international association with a combined membership of approximately 100 corporate sugar refining companies and corporate allied companies with over 500 individual members worldwide.^[1]

Closure and redevelopment

On 1 July 2005, Sugar Research Limited, trading as Sugar Research Institute, entered into an exclusive affiliation with Queensland University of Technology, providing stakeholders with access to research and consulting facilities. By June 2006 the sale of the property was finalised with the research work of the institute being transferred to Brisbane. The building was then advertised for lease.^[1]

It was subsequently refurbished and adapted for use as the Parklands Mackay Business Hub serviced offices.^[3]

Landscape Features

The dominant landscape feature is the double row of royal palms (Roystonea regia) that line the roadside perimeter of the site. A low face-brick fence runs along the roadside boundary with pillars marking the entrances. A circular bitumen drive is centred on the front entrance of the building.^[1]

There are several large established trees adjacent to the Director's Residence and scattered about the site. Planting beds are located immediately in front of the two wings of the main building and within the circular driveway. There is an established, fenced-off domestic garden behind the house.^[1]

There is a rear entrance to the site off the west boundary with a bitumen drive linking the various buildings through to the basement access.^[1]

The balance of the site is a fenced off paddock to the south.^[1]

Main (Institute) Building

Exterior The institute is a two-storey face-brick building with a sub-floor basement. The building is best described stylistically as being "stripped classical", given its symmetrical massing and emphasised classical portico. The classical idiom is maintained through the use of white marble for the entrance steps and cladding to the walls, columns and ceiling of the portico. Two pedestals intended to support sculptures flank the entrance which would have further emphasised the classical theme.^[1]

Low pedestals either side of the marble stairs have a rough textured finish. This finish appears to be a recent application.^[1]

The portico has a central glazed double door with sheet bronze finish. Surrounding the door, the portico is fully glazed in bronze framing. There is a marble spandrel panel above door height with obscure glazing above this.^[1]

The windows to the east and west wings of the northern facade are made up of 15 pairs of vertically proportioned, painted timber windows set between painted plastered columns at ground and first floor. At each level, a painted concrete canopy projects over the windows. There is a painted concrete sill which projects slightly.^[1]

The face-brick wall is capped with what appears to be a painted sheet metal coping (probably covering the original coping).^[1]

The east elevation has been plastered and painted. Three painted timber framed windows at ground level serve the Directors Office. The frames of two smaller windows to the toilet have replaced with aluminium.^[1]

A vertical construction joint divides the south (rear) elevation marking the junction of the 1953 and 1966 construction phases. The slight difference in the colour and texture of the bricks is apparent.^[1]

The south elevation is occupied almost entirely by two continuous bands of windows following an identical pattern to the north elevation but without the projecting centre bay. At ground floor level two doors interrupt the pattern at the eastern end and toward the centre two window bays have been removed and in filled with fibre cement boarding and an aluminium window. At the western end a vehicle ramp leads down to a roller shutter door to the basement.^[1]

The only penetration in the west elevation is a doorway inserted to link to the covered walkway to the Conference Hall. The words "Sugar Research Institute" are fixed to the wall at first floor level.^[1]

The roof of the Main Building is a low-pitched Dutch gable covered with corrugated, asbestos cement roofing sheets. It is set behind a substantial parapet wall on all four sides. Four prominent, sheet metal rain water heads are set symmetrically on the surface of the brickwork on both of the north and south elevations and drain into sheet metal, rectangular section, surface mounted downpipes.^[1]

Garage Building

Three single garages are linked at ground level via a short passage to the east wing of the Main building. The north wall is plastered and painted with the words "Sugar Research Institute" fixed to the top of the wall. The plaster has horizontal coursing marks. The remaining walls are face-brick. The roof is low pitched, hipped, covered with corrugated asbestos cement tiles and set behind parapet walls. There is a marble coping to all the parapets.^[1]

The garage doors are roller shutters, but the timber frames indicate that there were originally side-hung double doors.^[1]

The interior of the garages was not viewed.^[1]

Director's Residence

Residence, 2006

The Director's residence is attached to the garage building. It has a hipped, corrugated asbestos cement tiled roof which is contiguous with the garage roof; however over the house the parapet wall gives way to overhanging eaves. Walls are face-brick and doors and windows are timber casements and painted white.^[1]

Brick stairs lead up to the recessed entrance. The lawn is ramped up to the bi-fold doors of the living room. At the rear of the house a raised semi-enclosed, covered patio area opens onto an informal garden area. The garden is enclosed with pool fencing.^[1]

Internally the Directors residence has generous living and dining areas located to the east of the entrance and the bedroom wing to the west. The bedrooms open to the north off a long passage while bath room, toilet and kitchen open to the south. A servery area is located between the kitchen and dining room.^[1]

The living/dining areas have fixed timber shelving and cupboards and in each bedroom an entire wall is fitted out with cupboards, shelving and drawers. The kitchen fittings are similarly ample. The joinery is generally of a high standard. Several units have a painted finish but it is likely that all were originally varnished.^[1]

Floors are timber and appear to have been sanded and sealed with a polyurethane finish. Bedroom floors have been carpeted. The kitchen and bathrooms have recent vinyl sheet coverings. Walls are generally plastered and painted. Ceilings to the bedrooms appear to be original plaster board with rounded cover strips and moulded cornices. The living/dining area appears to have a recent plasterboard ceiling. The passage and entrance area has a recent lowered ceiling to accommodate air conditioning ducting.^[1]

Workshop

The workshop building has a short covered link to the rear of the Main building and forms part of the original construction. It has subsequently become totally enclosed by later structures forming covered parking areas and workshop extensions. The hipped roof of corrugated asbestos cement tiles and the face-brick external walls however remain largely intact although there have been door and window insertions.^[1]

Internally the building consists of several rooms with bench space and stainless steel sinks. One room is fitted out as a darkroom.^[1]

Charles Young Conference Hall

The Charles Young Conference Hall and laboratories is a single storey brick building located to the west of the main building and connected via a covered walkway. The covered walkway is the strongest feature of the building forming a veranda and covered entrance to the Conference Hall. It consists of a heavy painted concrete canopy and projecting beams supported on dressed concrete columns.^[1]

The conference hall has a large span roof with a pre-coated profiled steel roofing sheet covering. It follows a roughly mansard form rising above low parapets.^[1]

The Conference hall building is a simple rectangle with a covered walkway on the east side. Walls are rectangular face-brick panels with narrow, full-height slot windows in between. These windows are all covered with a decorative, pre-formed aluminium sheet sun- screening. Areas opening on to the veranda have full-height aluminium framed glazing and doors.^[1]

A wing of offices and laboratories extends to the east of the hall behind the Main (Institute) building. This wing has a low pitched gabled roof finished as for the hall roof with boxed-in eaves. Walls are of face-brick. Windows and doors are aluminium framed.^[1]

Internally the conference hall is a large clear space with vinyl floor tiles, face-brick walls and large coffered ceiling panels. The hall is well provided with conference facilities.^[1]

The office/laboratory area has vinyl tile floors; exterior walls are plastered and painted while all internal subdivision of spaces is made up of light aluminium framed partitioning system with timber ply panels and clear glazing above door head height. Fittings are generally made up of Formica finished panels on steel framing.^[1]

Attribution

This Wikipedia article was originally based on "The Queensland heritage register" published by the State of Queensland under CC-BY 3.0 AU licence (accessed on 7 July 2014, archived on 8 October 2014). The geo-coordinates were originally computed from the "Queensland heritage register boundaries" published by the State of Queensland under CC-BY 3.0 AU licence (accessed on 5 September 2014, archived on 15 October 2014).