Jury chair report

It’s been a bumper crop for educational architecture in 2023, with a record 31 projects entered. This includes 15 public schools, eight private schools, five university projects, two kindergartens and an early learning centre. In terms of budget, scale and complexity, there is a substantial gulf between a kindergarten and a university campus, making the jury’s task particularly challenging.

The unprecedented number of entrants in the education category can be largely explained by the sizeable investment in government schools over the past decade. It has been seven years since the establishment of the Victorian School Building Authority, and we are beginning to see the fruits of a new generation of school designers shining through.

The jury was immensely impressed by the high quality of learning environments on show. Architects are meeting the brief and striving to achieve so much more for the students and teachers of Victoria. Perhaps counterintuitively, it was often those projects bound by tight budgets and challenging sites that demonstrated the greatest ingenuity and delight. Naturally, the jury was looking for architecture that offered something beyond the brief. We were not disappointed. This year’s winners are brimming with ideas: Sibling’s deconstruction of the corridor into a joyful enfilade of student lounges for Box Hill North Primary School; Kennedy Nolan’s externalised circulation, connecting classrooms with nature for Macleod College; the robust adaptability of Six Degrees’ vertical school at Carlton Gardens Primary; Project 12’s superbly reduced and composed palette for Meadows Primary School; Fieldwork + Brand’s campus within a building, delivering exceptional learning environments on a constrained and challenging site. And of course, the new student precinct at the University of Melbourne, a project that demonstrates the full transformative potential and social riches that great architecture has to offer. There is much to celebrate here.

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The Henry Bastow Award for Educational Architecture

University of Melbourne Student Precinct by Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture, NMBW Architecture Studio, Greenaway Architects, Architects EAT, Aspect Studios and Glas Urban Wurundjeri Country

The University of Melbourne Student Precinct resolves myriad forces – urban, social, cultural, historical, geographical – into a richly layered campus that is both vibrant and robust. There is a seamlessness to the precinct with its roots in the design team itself: many architectural voices singing from the one song sheet without ever sacrificing their individual expression.

Seamlessness in all things: between the city and the campus; urban grids and natural waterways; the interior and exterior realms; Indigenous and colonial narratives; upper and lower levels; urban and human scales; and between student-run and university-controlled spaces.

Despite the many challenges inherent in the complexities of the site, stakeholders, and the brief, the design team have managed to transcend mere pragmatics to deliver a campus that is energised, joyful and deeply expressive. It is seamless, yet never at the expense of texture, diversity or authenticity. In fact, it is in the deep exploration and celebration of the precinct’s many threads that resolutions have been found: their commonalities and tensions expressed and resolved. A microcosm of what a city could be and ought to be. Accommodating. Inclusive. Delightful.

Practice team: Lyons with Koning Eizenberg Architecture, NMBW Architecture Studio, Greenaway Architects, Architects EAT, Aspect Studios and Glas Urban (Design Architect)

Consultant / Construction team: DCWC (Project Manager), Slattery (Cost Consultant), Irwin Consult/WSP (Structural Engineer), Lucid (Services Consultant), McKenzie Group (Building Surveyor), Aurecon (ESD Consultant), BCG (Facade Engineer), Dobbs Doherty (Fire Engineer), Schuler Shook (Theatre Planner), Marshall Day Acoustics (Acoustic Consultant), CHW (AV Consultant), Aspect Studios and Glas Urban (Landscape Consultant), Aspect Urban + Public (Wayfinding Consultant), Lovell Chen (Heritage Consultant), GTA Consultants (Traffic Consultant), Irwin Consult/WSP (Waste Consultant)

Builder: Kane Constructions

Photographer: Peter Bennetts

Award for Educational Architecture

Box Hill North Primary School by Sibling Architecture

Wurundjeri Country

Box Hill North Primary School by Sibling Architecture embraces the opportunity to transform a simple brief for a primary school building into a spirited and playful set of spaces that hold opportunity in every corner. Sibling Architecture’s distinct hand has translated to a project that offers delightful day-lit and inspiring learning environments that will capture the imagination of students.

The building, which is framed by eucalypts and brick villas, greets the community with a formal language that is borrowed from its context to create a familiar and homely space for the school community.

Sibling Architecture has demonstrated how small moves can deliver big impact. A conventional fourby-two arrangement of eight classrooms is enhanced by the rotation of each north-south pair. This gentle shift offers a generous result: what would ordinarily be a central circulation spine is transformed into a zigzag of layered pockets for retreating, making, and doing.

The jury were delighted by the expansive volume of the interior spaces as well as the playful geometry of the brick and metal building fabric. The project is exemplary in its careful articulation of all architectural elements to create a spirit of generosity within a small footprint.

Practice team: Nicholas Braun (Design Architect), Alice Edmonds (Project Architect), Eleanor Peres (Graduate of Architecture), Andrea Lam (Graduate of Architecture) Consultant / Construction team: Argall (Structural Engineer), Cundall (Services Consultant)

Builder: Simbuilt

Photographer: Tope Adesina

Award for Educational Architecture

Centre for Higher Education Studies by Fieldwork + Brand Architects

Wurundjeri Country

At the Centre for Higher Education Studies (CHES), Fieldwork +Brand Architects have deftly navigated a myriad of easements and the challenges of an incredibly tight Chapel Street site to create a considered and delightful vertical school for the state government’s accelerated learning program.

CHES presents measured and robust facades to the Chapel Street and rear elevations – corrugated precast planter boxes and carefully shrouded windows. However, in the interior is where the true joy is revealed. At ground level, clear planning leads to a carefully landscaped social courtyard at the base of a dramatic and light-filled atrium. On such a tight site, both architect and client should be applauded for the spatial relief this provides the interiors.

On the upper levels, the collaboration with Ben Cleveland to develop the formal and informal learning settings has led to thoughtful and wellconsidered outcomes. The central atrium is wrapped with a series of purposeful breakout spaces and nooks. Classrooms are light-filled, and the facade planting mediates views to the neighbours.

The interior palette and detailing are refined and cohesive, Victorian Ash, utilised in the hybrid structural system, has been celebrated throughout. It was abundantly clear the architects revelled in the rhythms and rules they set themselves.

Practice team: Joachim Holland - Fieldwork (Design Director - Architect), Farnia Askari - Brand Architects (Project Director - Architect), Gerard McCurry - Brand Architects (Director - Architect), Laurence Robinson - Brand Architects (Director / Educational Planner - Architect), Tim BrooksFieldwork (Project Architect), Philip Weatherlake - Brand Architects (Senior Architect), Bridget Lensen - Fieldwork (Architect), William Anderson - Fieldwork (Architect), Simon Lobianco - Fieldwork (Architect), Theo Roseland - Brand Architects (Graduate of Architecture), Sofia Ward - Brand Architects (BIM Documenter)

Consultant / Construction team: Engaging Spaces (Education Consultant), Openwork (Landscape Architect), Marshall Day (Acoustic Consultant), PLP (Building Surveyor), Equal Access (DDA Consultant), Cundall (ESD Consultant), Wilde and Woolard (Quality Surveyor), WGA (Structural Engineer), WGA (Civil Consultant), Cundall (Services Consultant), Eco Results (Waste Management). Mel Consulting (Wind Engineering), Audio Visual (UT Consulting), BCA (Fire Engineering), Geo Aust (Geotechnical)

Builder: Figurehead

Photographer: Tom Ross

Award for Educational Architecture

Macleod College by Kennedy Nolan Wurundjeri Country

Kennedy Nolan’s Macleod College Science Centre breathes fresh air into this existing campus, with a contemporary response expressing a clear vision and confident identity. Strategic demolition unlocks opportunities for connections and courtyards, creating a highly legible and compelling campus, refreshing the public interface and inviting future development.

Working hard within constraints and consistently seeking opportunities for generosity, purposeful specialist teaching spaces are delivered with joyful highlights. Releasing circulation from corridors, breezeways cleverly allow porosity, inviting occupation and supporting the broader vision for a connected campus. Delightfully permeable bathrooms welcome light and air indoors.

Responding to the materiality of the existing 1970s buildings, the soft tonal external palette references the native bushland and settles comfortably into the surrounding landscape. A confident complimentary interior palette offers an inviting and uplifting interior. Bullnose-roof forms and curves create dynamic form, with considered details enabling clean simple lines.

Deftly articulated, this project feels effortless. Smart decisions have been made to provide texture and warmth within a robust palette. This astute care given to material selection, form and spatial planning provide great value. This project presents a highly engaging contemporary environment for learning, providing an optimistic template for public schools to come.

Practice team: Patrick Kennedy (Design Architect), Rachel Nolan (Design Architect), Susan Syer (Design Architect), Hilary Duff (Project Architect), Elizabeth Campbell (Project Architect), Danny Truong (Project Architect)

Commendation for Educational Architecture

Consultant / Construction team: Brogue Consulting Engineering (Structural Engineer), BRT Consulting Engineers (Services Consultant), Simon Ellis Landscape Architects (Landscape Consultant), Urban Digestor (ESD Consultant)

Builder: JR & BL Kendall Pty Ltd

Photographer: Derek Swalwell

Country: Wurundjeri

Embracing student requests for pink Lego and a giant slide, this project packs a lot into a tight site, delivering high efficiency with playful moments. Order is prioritised to deliver value, enabling an open ground plane and a series of inviting light-filled perimeter classrooms. Persuasive versatility is demonstrated by the successful loose-fit top floor. Breeze blocks and perforated screens add a lyrical overlay, mediating edges and framing external views. This project is commendably bright and robust with compelling adaptability.

Builder: CCB Envico

Photographer: Nick Love

Country: Wurundjeri

At Meadows Primary School, Project 12 Architecture puts the needs of their client first and foremost – providing rational and calm architecture that fosters student academic, social, and emotional requirements. In doing so, they have created a simple and elegant outcome that puts the school’s needs before design ego. The well-crafted exteriors are balanced with a hard-working internal plan. The corridors quietly delight with playful use of colour and natural light. There is integrity in the approach throughout, and the result is highly commendable.

Builder: Alchemy Construct

Photographer: Rory Gardiner