Located at the Ringwood campus centre, the design responds to the School’s environment and pedagogy. The brief required twelve class rooms, aligned with the pedagogy of ‘Parallel Learning’ that, tailoring curriculum delivery to each gender, separates girls and boys in Years 7, 8 and 9, ideally without shared entries or corridors.

Sloping gently toward the oval, the site is characterised by mature eucalypts, with established  paths across the upper contours and a second, lower pathway, flanking the oval. With the preference for separate buildings, the design seized an opportunity to connect upper and lower paths and, declining a traditional solution (of two central corridor, double- loaded classroom blocks), celebrated Parallel Learning by projecting two parallel ‘floating’ pavilions into the landscape – creating a sheltered space beneath. Bridged by staff-only facilities, the two classroom wings utilise modular classroom layouts, single loaded from a wide corridor.

A high quality interior environment was economically achieved by a repetitive, steel-framed and expressed, off-form concrete structure with standardised, translucent wall panels that enclose classrooms and corridors. Maintaining privacy between the girls’ and boys’ buildings, the translucent double skin wall panels achieve high thermal performance, with energy efficiencies and code compliance. As both cladding and glazing systems, the panels provide diffuse, low-glare, natural light – sufficient for day time teaching and learning. Operable windows, for natural ventilation, augment air-conditioning.

The Middle School is carefully oriented to express a new public face and school identity, although the building profile is intentionally low, to reduce visual bulk. The landscape spine formed in the under croft is designed as a ‘dry creek bed’ element, absorbing and dispersing stormwater. Steelwork and all translucent wall panels were prefabricated (reducing site construction times) and finishes are generally natural (minimising paint finishes and maintenance costs). By astute and innovative design, the project was delivered 10% below budget.

Project Sheet

• Project Sheet