Wyndham Vale Primary School

It was important that the new school conveyed the civic value of education boldly through its architectural expression. The site is surrounded by residential development. This created an opportunity to define this specific area through the design of proud civic buildings, of appropriate size and strength with strong forms.

Recognition of place and memory of an environment are important, particularly in young children beginning their education. The design presents characteristics that are easily identifiable, exposing new students to a variety of stimulating, yet memorable, environments.

The educational purpose of the new school was expected to focus on:

• building a sense of community within the school
• supporting the development of lifelong learning skills
• inspiring aspiration among the young people in the area
• providing young people with a range of educational experiences that can support the development of social capital within the community
• instilling a sense of belonging, identity and engagement amongst students

The design response addressed these objectives by;

• Creating ‘learning neighbourhoods’ that cater for different year levels and provide flexible learning spaces that can be configured in different ways to meet particular teaching and learning modes.
• Creating a mix of shared spaces and acoustically isolated spaces to promote interconnected learning, enabling students and teachers to move between general learning areas and more purposeful settings.
• Creating a school with no corridors, by reallocating circulation space to active space; everywhere should be a learning space.
• Eliminating doors, limiting walls, and creating visual transparency, giving students the ability to move between settings, facilitating a sense of connectivity between staff and pupils, and supporting passive supervision.
• Maximise the scale of selected areas within the buildings to give prominence within the community, supporting the development of school spirit.

The central courtyard is the ‘heart’ of the school, providing an important anchor point for the campus. The space is large enough for school assemblies and provides a range of multifunctional landscape elements which support activities such as performance, play or relaxing. Given the essentially flat nature of the site, it was important to provide some modulation and height articulation to the landscape.