View and learn more about the design of education, including kindergarten, school, university, college and community college buildings, lecture halls, lecture theatres, sports facilities, classrooms, tertiary education buildings, workshops, art studios, TAFE buildings, faculty buildings, and student common areas; for case studies, precedent studies, and inspiration.
Featuring the work of renown architects HASSELL Architects, Gregory Burgess Architects, John Wardle Architects, Wilson Architects, Peter Elliott Architecture, Urban Design, Anthony Styant-Browne Architect, Phillips Pilkington Architects, Woods Bagot, Woodhead International, Russell & Yelland Architects, and Guida Moseley Brown Architects, among many others.
Located in the heart of Queensland’s sunny Gold Coast, Robina has always had strong community ties, as the home of two of the area’s most recognised institutions, Bond University and the Robina Town Centre, one of the largest shopping centres in the region. This sense of fraternity led to calls for a new community performing arts centre to be used by the public for a number of purposes, including a training and performance space, meeting place, activities centre and a purpose-built after-hours child care facility.
The Essington School Computer Centre strikes a fine balance between work and play, a cheerful affirmation to its pupils that walls don’t necessarily have to be built straight, that windows don’t always have to be rectilinear, and that building materials and colours can be challenging, bold and vibrant.
There is nothing that tourists desire more than to feel welcomed by the community they are visiting, whether that experience takes place in a big city or a quiet, sleepy beachside area.
The esteemed Rural Clinical School of the University of Queensland School of Medicine focuses on encouraging medical practitioners to take up practice by providing positive clinical education and training experiences for medical students in rural areas. And nothing aids the learning experience more than to do so in a welcoming and efficient environment. This is exactly what Arkhefield has provided with their design of the school.
Custodianship of the land is a two-way street: a matter of give and take. The custodians, as a reward for taking care of the land, are entitled to benefit from its bounties. And the land, by sustaining its users, benefits from the care they take in maintaining and sustaining it.
Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre by Paradigm Architects
Custodianship of the land is a two-way street: a matter of give and take. The custodians, as a reward for taking care of the land, are entitled to benefit from its bounties. And the land, by sustaining its users, benefits from the care they take in maintaining and sustaining it.
Located in the tropical, arid environs of South Hedland, Western Australia, the Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre embodies this symbiosis between the land and its community, and the bridging function of the built form at the nexus of this relationship. The centre incorporates sustainable principles with indigenous cultural sensitivities to provide a serious of functional offices and meeting spaces inspired by the needs of the human users, as well as those of the environment.
The Australian bush vernacular – what the architects describe as an “industrial and agricultural corrugated iron aesthetic” – is already ideally adapted to the harsh climate in which it and its users must endure. It was therefore the logical basis for Paradigm’s ultimate concept: a collection of pavilion buildings, with rammed earth to echo the rich tones of the Pilbara land, a timber-screened verandah dappled in shade from native trees, and upwardly curved Custom Orb® wall and roof panelling, for that classic woolshed aesthetic (literally,“with a twist”).
In the desert, it would be impossible to completely eliminate artificial cooling (at some point, one must reach a reasonable balance between saving the environment, and saving the building’s users!). Ergo, each pavilion is cooled by mechanical air conditioning throughout the summer, but demand and consumption is mitigated through careful use of passive thermal techniques, and the system is switched off entirely for the cooler six months of the year.
Structurally, the building works just as hard (though passively of course) to keep temperatures down. High corrugated ceilings and cross ventilation are backed up by ubiquitously Aussie ceiling fans, which help to circulate fresh air into the interior and send hot stale air outside. Insulated concrete floors serve as a heat sink, and the vehicle lock-up holds down two additional roles: protecting the main building from the western sun, and creating a shady gathering area for the centre’s staff. Also a very ‘Aussie’ feature, shaded outdoor decks serve as naturally ventilated and lit work areas, while fostering communication between individuals, and with the landscape itself.
The choice of lighting solutions is a further display of attention to detail in this even-handed consideration for both the users and the environment. For the sake of comfort, high-level windows and white Custom Orb ceilings introduce ample natural daylighting to the interior, and help to reduce sound attenuation. But on the environmental level, this also reduces the need for artificial lighting, which, even when it is required, is controlled by both motion and photosensors, and therefore activated only when needed by the user, and also only when insufficient natural light is detected. A solar/heat pump hot water system, wastewater treatment system and selective choice of construction materials further reduces the environmental footprint of the building, with plans for a grid-connected photovoltaic energy system in the future, which should assist in achieving complete carbon neutrality.
But let us not overlook the fact that this project also draws on much, much older ideas, inherent to the indigenous people of this land, as well as the newer concepts of environmental sustainability and aspiring carbon neutrality. A breezeway “spine” incorporates a play of light and shadow through screens and roof forms, which combined with the rammed earth wall is intended to recreate the timeless experience of walking through a desert gorge. And as much as the land and its people require practical sustainability, they both also need spirit and vibrancy, culture and colour. And so Paradigm Architects chose a spectrum of vivid greens and pinks, ‘burnt’ veneers and rich reds and browns, to reflect the colourful people and landscape while instilling an atmosphere as professional as it is fun. +
PHOTOGRAPY Don Palmer
1. An entry verandah welcomes visitors to the building and provides a shady meeting and resting spot. The roof twists up to the north to form a tropical chimney, while timber screens are employed as shading along the verandah edge. 2. The Wangka Maya Pilbara Aboriginal Language Centre retreat explores the notion of connection to the typical building idiom of the region using corrugated steel, timber, louvres and Pindan. High, corrugated ceilings with ceiling fans are iconic features of the vernacular. 3. Walkways utilise an ‘eroded’ aggregate concrete finish that is robust and durable. Decks provide comfortable sitting/working platforms, referencing the traditional verandah form. 4. The breezeway spine, with a play of light and shadow through screens, roof forms and rammed earth walls contributes to the sense of walking through a gorge. 5. Dry river beds add to the spatial quality and deal with torrential rain through roof openings and overflows.
Too often, university architecture focuses on classrooms and lecture halls, while neglecting the human factor. Students arrive, attend lectures, then leave again. Or they visit the library, collect some books, and go elsewhere to study. Study groups meet off-campus. They rush from one end of the campus to the other, and then leave when class is over. In this sense, there is a big difference between “being at university” and being “at” university.
When Sydneysiders think of the words ‘Sandstone University’, they think of Sydney University: its beautiful Neo-Gothic Grand Hall and Oxford-esque Main Quadrangle, designed by Edmund Blacket from 1854-62, are treasured landmarks for the city, and one of the reasons students love to study at the institution. But until very recently, students and staff in the University’s Law Faculty were located off-site at the University’s Phillip Street campus, half the city away in a brutalist CBD tower block. They missed out on the beautiful atmosphere and architecture of the main campus, so the announcement that a new Law Faculty building was to be built on the main campus was greeted with much enthusiasm, and there was a great eagerness to see its construction completed.
It is a truth generally acknowledged that as a society we work hard to ensure that our children are given the best possible education in their youth, so as to set them on the path to living even better lives than we do. Whilst the learning process itself is one of great importance, the environment in which children learn the skills and information they need in later life is arguably just as valuable. This supposition is what Sydney-based architectural firm Candalepas Associates have taken into account, with their design for a new upgrade to All Saints Grammar in Belmore, NSW.
lahznimmo architects lahznimmo architects creates places for people and with people in mind, aiming to make a social and cultural contribution to the built environment. So the post-industrial surroundings and burnt-out remnants of "Building 13" were a perfect inspiration for this latest incarnation of the café: a much-needed lively hub for Blaxland Riverside Park in Sydney's Olympic precinct.
Smart Design Studio Founded by William Smart in 1997, Smart Design Studio quickly secured its reputation as an excellent multidisciplinary practice, combining a generally holistic approach with fine attention to detail. This project is a perfect demonstration of this success: an open, transparent workplace with symbolic yet practical flourishes designed to foster an atmosphere of creativity.
