Develop your creative practice in our studio spaces
The Queensland College of Art and Design (QCAD) studios provide an outstanding practical and community-building environment. QCAD studios include technical workshops, fully-equipped print, jewellery and photography studios as well as substantial studios for drawing, painting, sculpture, contemporary Australian Indigenous art and design. These studios–located across our South Bank and Gold Coast campuses–also provide an important shared space for exchange and critique between peers, staff and visiting artists.
Explore studios in 360°
Experience QCAD from wherever you are, without stepping foot on campus
Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art (CAIA) studios
Combine your passion for Country and culture in dedicated CAIA studios, purpose built for students of the Bachelor of Contemporary Australian Indigenous Art.
The space is a perfect environment for you to connect, share ideas and create work based on research into your own family history and traditions.
Design studios
The design studios on both the South Bank and Gold Coast campuses are designed as collaborative working environments.
In these studios, you'll develop projects through workshops and collaboration with fellow students and both private and industry partners.
We offer state-of-the-art equipment, key tools and the latest technologies, allowing you to take your concepts from design to prototype under one roof.
Equipment
The studios offer advanced systems and equipment, including:
- Commercial grade 3D printers
- Fully immersive Virtual Reality lab
- Laser scanning
- Microelectronics.
Workshops
Work with materials like timber, plastics, foam and metals on a range of machines and hand tools to create objects, furniture, full scale building components, prototypes and scale models. Workshop equipment includes:
- Sanders
- Routers
- Circular saws
- Specialised joinery machines.
Computer labs and Liveworm
Computer labs offer the latest industry hardware and software. Liveworm South Bank and Liveworm Gold Coast are equipped with:
- Two dedicated studio spaces modelled on industry workspaces
- Workstations with industry standard software
- Analogue maker supplies and spaces including markers, ink, paint, and cutting boards
- Public-facing meeting room for client briefings and presentations
- Student lounge and mini design library
- Student kitchen and break room.
Liveworm studios
Liveworm bridges the gap between design theory and creative professional practice, providing a unique opportunity for you to test and develop your abilities on real projects, for real people, in a real studio environment. You'll collaborate with industry partners across two dedicated studio spaces on the South Bank and Gold Coast campuses, alongside remote students via Virtual Design Studio technologies and workflows.
Established in 1982, Liveworm is one of the longest-running design studios in Australia and a flagship experience for multiple generations of Queensland College of Art and Design Griffith University graduates. The program has launched thousands of creative careers with Liveworm project outcomes featuring in graduate design portfolios across the globe.
ADaPT 1.0
ADaPT brings together multi-disciplinary expertise across Griffith University in collaboration with leading industry partners to push the boundaries in advanced custom design, rapid prototyping and new materials.
With advanced design at its centre and collaboration at its core, ADaPT combines leading-edge expertise in micro and nanoscience, complex imaging, 3D digital scanning, 3D functional modelling, bioengineering, industrial design, big data analytics, artificial intelligence and specialist expertise in designing advanced manufacturing processes. ADaPT is equipped with extensive 3D printing technologies including multiple metal, polymer and bio printing capabilities.
Drawing studio
This purpose-built studio is adaptable to suit the diverse practise of drawing.
Perfect for experimentation and testing of ideas, the large studio space is ideal for sharing work and interacting with peers and teaching staff.
Jewellery and Small Objects studio
This studio on our South Bank campus is used by undergraduate and postgraduate students to create artworks for the body, or small-scale objects. The studio is a hub of activity with a community-building ethos.
The J&SO student collective runs extracurricular activities and events that help students to build their networks and experience, and significantly contribute to the strong community culture at QCAD.
Studio courses focus on concept-driven projects to build bench skills, materials knowledge and technical proficiency.
Featured equipment
- Wide range of specialist hand tools
- Technical store with specialist materials
- Wide range of specialist machinery
- Rolling mills
- Hydraulic presses
- Fly press
- Enamel kilns
- Draw bench
- Flexible shafts
- Lost Wax Casting facilities
Painting studio
These studios at our South Bank campus are located on level 6 of the Grey Street Studios overlooking the Brisbane River and CBD. These impressive light-filled spaces are available to students studying second and third-year painting courses. You'll use these studios to develop artwork related to your painting courses and importantly, as a space for shared exchange and critique with both staff and peers.
The space includes:
- Individual studio spaces for third year students
- Shared studio space for second year students
- All studio spaces are equipped with easel, locker, desk and chair
- Access to painting consumables such as primer and solvent
- Canvas stretching workshop.
Photography studio
Our South Bank Photography studios consist of two specialty spaces, including three fully-equipped photographic studios and two darkrooms. They are fitted out with the world’s leading brands in photographic studio lighting, computers and software and have been designed to facilitate large group projects as well as individual practice. The studios are used as a core teaching space for students where academics, alumni and industry are regular contributors to student learning and engagement.
The darkrooms are fundamental to the student experience of photography at QCAD and consist of black and white printing, as well as black and white and colour film processing facilities, and several wet areas for experimental processes. These are practice-led learning environments that encourage experimentation while harnessing techniques and skills.
We also offer a digital lab–LiveImage–for scanning negatives and photographic or other prints, working on digital files in creative software and creating archival exhibition quality photographic prints.
Printmaking studio
We are nationally recognised for the quality and safety of our printmaking studios. The printmaking techniques supported in them include; papermaking, relief/woodblock printing, letterpress, intaglio/etching, lithography, silk screening, artists books and a range of digital techniques including laser engraving. As a student working in these studios, you're encouraged to seamlessly integrate technical proficiency into the conceptual content of your work.
Sculpture studio
Located on the ground level of our South Bank campus, facing out to the South Bank Parklands, the layout of the sculpture studio is open and flexible. You'll create your own individual studio space with moveable panels and will develop and install work for your final graduate exhibition in these spaces. There are two temporary installation rooms where you're encouraged to experiment with video projections and multimedia project ideas.
This unique warehouse-like space has vast ceilings, perfect for you to develop ambitious suspended works that can hang from the steel beams. As the studio is located at ground level, you can drop off heavy materials like metal and timber directly to the loading dock. Industrial electric roller doors allow for large-scale works to be constructed and there is a large bank of tables outside of the studio with shade protection, where you can work on plaster, sanding and stretching frames.
Sculpture studio
- Three electric kilns
- Two lines of compressed air built into the walls near the roller doors, for a nail gun, staple gun or pop rivet to build frames or structures in-situ
- Beams in ceiling to suspend work
- Large bank of outdoor tables with shade cover to create large-scale sculptural works
- Bay of sinks for wet work and clean up.
Workshop
Directly across from the sculpture studios is the workshop, which has well-maintained facilities and a highly efficient extraction system. Equipment includes:
- Mig and tig welding
- Table saws
- Sand blasting machine
- Grinders
- Metal cutter
- Wire cutter
- Spray painting booth
Central tech room
The workshop is serviced by a technician and central techroom, which has a range of hand tools and equipment that students can borrow, including:
- Drills
- Dander
- Jigsaws
- Heat guns
- Biscuit cutter
- Pop riveter
- Glue guns
- Sewing machines
- And more.
QCAD Galleries
Exhibitions, guest lectures and artist talks are programmed in the Project Gallery, Webb Gallery and Grey Street Gallery throughout the year. Exhibition opportunities are available to students, staff and external exhibitors. Exhibitions are free and open to the public.
We aim to foster experimentation and innovation while providing a forum for research, ideas and exchange. Exhibition programming varies across our gallery spaces, with a primary focus on contemporary art and design, research, curatorial projects and connections between artists from South East Queensland and beyond.
Study options
Study Visual Arts or Design and put your skills to the test in our QCAD studios
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- Location and delivery address
- South Bank campus
- Queensland College of Art and Design
- Griffith University
- 226 Grey Street
- South Bank, QLD 4101
- Location and delivery address
- Gold Coast campus
- Queensland College of Art and Design
- Griffith University
- Parklands Drive
- Southport, QLD 4222