Venice Biennale
South Melbourne Primary School and Integrated Community Facilities
A1 Panel
A2 Panels
A4 Panels
South Melbourne Primary School and Integrated Community Facilities Building Area
7000m2
Location
South Melbourne Melbourne, Australia
Completion
2018
Rising to a height of six storeys SMPS is Australia’s first vertical school. The building integrates shared school and community spaces for a growing community and expresses a model continuum of life and experience across learning, work, and play. As well as a government primary school for 525 students, this project integrates a kindergarten, maternal and child health clinic, multi-use community rooms and indoor and outdoor multi-purpose sports courts.
The school is located within the 2.5km2 Fisherman’s Bend Urban Renewal Area of Melbourne, which is expected to grow to 80,000 residents over the next 40 years. Synergies are created through the shared use of program spaces, cooperative management and governance, and working in partnership to develop community education programs and community ventures. Urban intensification and the contemporary pedagogical development connects to the community whereby the urban environment is considered an extension of a more extravert educational setting that houses both education, community, and public activity.
Early Learning Centre & Learning Community
This new paradigm, reflects both the changing industrial heritage of the area and the much older and deeper geological layers of Coode Island Silt below the ground plane, combining to enable observation and honouring of the specific design conditions that are in turn reconciled as conceptual plateaus.
Learning Communities
Shared School/ Community Staff Administration Music Art Community Services Maternal Child Health Centre Library
Early Learning Centre School Use School Outdoor Learning Community / School Shared Facility Community Vertical Piazza