Wurundjeri Woi Wurrung
Victorian
This dynamic vertical campus for grade 5 and 6 students creates exemplary learning, teaching, staff working and multipurpose community environments for a much-loved inner-city school.
Spanning three levels, the building adopts a simple but rigorous floorplan that accommodates a large program on a constrained site. Located opposite the Darling Gardens, the design response references the existing heritage campus buildings while also drawing inspiration from Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
A ribbon band of glazed green bricks and use of circular ‘bite like’ apertures bring a whimsical quality to the design. Exposed structural elements including mass timber and articulated services enable the building to serve as an explanatory teaching tool for students.
Designed utilising a mass timber hybrid construction to achieve Passivhaus Certification, a first for the VSBA, the building integrates a PV array on the playground roof terrace to provide power and a visual learning opportunity.
The senior campus has transformed the teaching and learning experience for staff and students. The innovative design encourages users to collaborate and engage with one another due to flexible learning zones, wide circulation areas and provision of planning and meeting spaces.
Users can gather outdoors on the rooftop garden or indoors in a sun filled general-purpose space. The expansive windows on each level connect the indoors to outdoors, providing panoramic views of the city, the Darling Gardens and the original 1870s school building. The deliberate colour choice of red brick and heritage green unifies the three school campuses; old and new.
Graham Burrows, Design Director
Thom McCarthy, Interior Designer
James Hoogenbosch, Project Manager/ Architectural Assistant
Damon Van Horne, Project Director
David Burton, Project Architect
du Chateau Chun, Accessibility Consultant
GLAS, Landscape Consultant
Inhabit Group, Passivehaus Consultant
Philip Chun, Building Surveyor
Plan Cost, Quantity Surveyor
Scientific Fire Services, Fire Engineering
TTW, Structural Engineer
WSP, Services Consultant
The Australian Institute of Architects acknowledges First Nations peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the lands, waters, and skies of the continent now called Australia.
We express our gratitude to their Elders and Knowledge Holders whose wisdom, actions and knowledge have kept culture alive.
We recognise First Nations peoples as the first architects and builders. We appreciate their continuing work on Country from pre-invasion times to contemporary First Nations architects, and respect their rights to continue to care for Country.
