Varsity College

Narratives

Architect Narrative

This project is part of the public educational service being provided to a new community being developed around an existing prestigious private University.

The vision for this new 21st Century community includes a number of special features. For example:
- There is a special effort being made to re-integrate such functions as living, working, learning, and recreating within the community. Often these functions have been disintegrated in 20th Century urban communities.
- Education is expected to become an ongoing and integral part of everyday life not only for the young but also for people of all ages and for organisations especially business and knowledge industries.

There are at least four exemplary ideas incorporated in this vision for the new 21st Century learning community and realised in the planning process, design and operation of the public education service. These ideas include:

- Re-connection of the public school with the community linking living, working, cultural and recreational activities with learning wherever possible
- Establishing the school library as a portal through which people of all ages in the community will access learning opportunities with the aid of the new information and communication technologies
- Developing educational specialties for which the school and the community will become known within and beyond the local community
- Creating a dispersed model for schooling which on the one hand breaks down an otherwise large school facility into a more distributed arrangement of early years, middle and senior components and on the other hand enables links which connect the smaller units into the one multi-campus community education service.

RE-CONNECTION WITH THE COMMUNITY
The middle and senior school facilities (see Image 1) illustrate how the idea of reconnection with the community has been realised.

The open space which serves as the Town Common also serves as the informal open space of the middle and senior campus. Joint ownership and development of this shared open space has a number of obvious practical resource advantages but of greater importance is the “statement” that the school is a central part of the life of the Town Centre. The re-connection idea also finds physical expression in the links between the senior school and the business facilities which will be built on three sides of the senior school campus. Just as the Town Common is seen as an extension of the school so these business facilities will serve as part of the learning spaces available to the senior school. In a very practical sense the workplace and the places for learning will be connected.

This idea of reconnection of school and community is not likely to be achieved by simply building facilities close together. The vision has been developed and the key ideas nurtured right through the planning process. The shared vision has been developed through workshops involving a full range of community stakeholders - residents, education service providers, the University, business, local government, central government authorities, and leaders in cultural, recreational, sporting and religious activities. In many respects this developmental approach with the people of the new community is more important than the specific decisions about buildings. What is really happening is the facilitation of a process of evolution of a new community. As a result of what has been a learning process in itself, the people who can make reconnection happen understand what is intended and are committed to sustaining the necessary effort.

THE LIBRARY
The library is another element in the re-engagement of the school with its community. Located at the interface between the school, the Town Centre and the business sector, the library is open for extended hours to serve both school and community.

It is the portal through which people of all ages will access at all hours and for 12 months of the year the learning opportunities they require. They will be assisted by a full range of new information and communication technologies.

These new learning technologies have transformed the library into a place which not only facilitates the retrieval of information but also the processing of data and the publication of new knowledge.

The library is also a social place with a coffee shop and meeting places available to the community. It is linked electronically with the University library and the regional network of State and Municipal libraries.

There are occasions when withdrawal of younger students to closely supervised spaces is required. In this project a succession of courtyards effectively separates areas which need to be secure from the more public spaces associated with the school - community interface.

SPECIALITIES
Part of the vision for the school is the evolution of a special “signature” as part of the educational program. The existing nearby University has a high international reputation for its programs in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This strength is reflected in the number of leading ICT enterprises which have been attracted to the new community and included in the planning process for the new school.

Building on these existing strengths the school will develop a unique education and training capability in multimedia applications and the new ICT. This “signature” development will be based on formal partnerships with the University and the local industry linking education with real job opportunities and establishing a reputation for the school as an important regional centre for the provision of specialised training in the information industries of the future.

A DISPERSED MODEL
Schooling in this community is not an activity confined within one large very visible School. Fixed, purpose built assets have become a problem for school authorities as demand has changed in nature and extent and specialised spaces such as labs and workshops have become out of date as technologies have rapidly altered. Furthermore, the idea of education as an ongoing whole of life experience is not best conveyed by creating a special place isolated from the everyday life of the community.

In this project, the places for learning have been deliberately dispersed throughout the community. There is still a recognisable school albeit divided into three elements - early years, middle and senior - with three campuses, each of which is able to develop an ethos appropriate to the age of its students.

The recreation and cultural facilities are shared with the community and located either in the community or at the interface between school and community rather than within the school boundary.

Business and industry including retail stores, processional office areas, corporate facilities (especially multimedia and information technology houses) are normal scheduled places for learning rather than places occasionally visited for “work experience”.

There is no doubt that the new information and communication technologies have made it possible to manage this dispersed model of schooling. The benefits include much greater contact between education and the life of the community, increased flexibility and adaptability in the provision of appropriate learning facilities and the opportunity to develop smaller more personal units in which social development and a sense of belonging are more effectively established.