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Sydney Road Community School
Information Session
[A woman appears on screen via video call. The screen is split with a PowerPoint presentation.]
Emilia
Hi my name’s Emilia, and I’m the Communications Adviser at the Victorian School Building Authority and I’ll be facilitating this evening’s conversation.
Tonight, you will be hearing from a number of panel experts who will be discussing the project at the Sydney Road Community School.
Before I run through the agenda and introduce the presenters, I would like to begin by acknowledging the Traditional Owners of the lands we are meeting on today and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who may be participating.
I pay my respects to Elders past, present and emerging, and recognise and celebrate the diversity of Aboriginal peoples and their ongoing cultures and connections to the lands and waters of Australia. I’d like to acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.
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In the spirit of reconciliation, the Victorian School Building Authority acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their Elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.
Emilia
Alright, now I’d like to take the opportunity to introduce our panel experts this evening.
[on-screen PowerPoint presentation]
Housekeeping: Your cameras and microphones have been turned off for the duration of the presentation. If you drop out for any reason, please log back in using the original link. If you encounter any further issues, please contact vsba@education.vic.gov.au
Emilia
We will begin with an overview of the project from Jane Hart on behalf of the Victorian School Building Authority and will then introduce our principals Irene and Tess who will talk about the project and the school. This will be followed by our architect Mat who will be discussing the design in detail. We will then open the floor up for any questions in this case we have some Q&As prepared so we might just throw to them before this session ends promptly at 7:15pm.
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Agenda:
- Introduction/meet the panel
- Project specifics
- Project milestones
- Introduction and discussion by Principals
- Architect introduction and discussion
- Q&A session
- Contact details
Emilia
You will need to excuse us as the panel moves on to the online sessions. Myself and school staff will help you to sign out if that's required. Any questions that we can't answer tonight please feel free to email the Victorian School Building Authority, we will provide those details at the end of this session. We'll also provide a phone number as well, feel free to call that number, you will speak to myself or my colleague Pieta.
[on-screen PowerPoint presentation]
MC/Facilitator: Emilia Sala, Victorian School Building Authority
Brief introduction as to how the session will run
Panel members:
Architects: Content Studio
Mat Foley, Sarah Kahn
Delivery: Victorian School Building Authority
Jane Hart
Principals: Sydney Road Community School
Tess Abbottsmith Youl, Irene Savakis
Emilia
We hope this session is a positive experience and that by the end of it you feel you've received the information you were after. So, with that, I would like to now introduce Jane Hart who's the Senior Project Officer at the Victorian School Building Authority, to talk about the project specifics such as scope milestones and the new site. Jane.
[Jane appears on screen via video call. The screen is still split with the PowerPoint presentation.]
[The on-screen PowerPoint presentation shows a render of the future school building in the top right corner. It has an arched roof. There is text on the slide]
Project specifics:
Funding
Funding year: 2020–2021
Funding amount: $3.8 million
Project scope:
We are moving the Sydney Road Community School to new premises at 8 Glenlyon Road, Brunswick. This will give the school a new home and provide better learning conditions for students. The Victorian Government has invested $3.8 million to refurbish the church hall at the new site and install a new triple-storey modular building.
We have planned these upgrades with the school to ensure their new buildings best suit their approach to teaching and learning, and students and teachers gain the modern, flexible learning environments they need.
We plan to begin construction in January and have the buildings ready for the start of the 2023 school year.
Jane
Thanks Emilia. So, Sydney Road Community School is a small progressive government secondary school of about 100 students. It's currently located in Brunswick, and it offers a standard Victorian Curriculum VCE and VCAL. And it also offers a VET subject in music production.
It's achieving success with students who struggle to reach their potential at local mainstream secondary schools. The school's present lease is about to come to an end and the school is looking to move to a new location. So, The Department of Education looked around and found a new site located in behind Christchurch Anglican Church, on Sydney Road. The lease for the new site, is for the existing church hall which you can see in the image there. And then the empty site behind, where there'll be a three-story modular building situated. The new leased premises will give the school a long-term home and provide better learning conditions for the students.
The Victorian Government's invested more than 3 million dollars to refurbish the church hall at this new site and install the new modular building. We've worked with the school over the past few months to plan what we need to do to the building, and the site, to accommodate the school and provide them with a great new learning environment. The results are that we'll be refurbishing the hall. So, that will mean fixing it, painting it, installation of a new mezzanine level, adding in classrooms and upgrading the facilities to suit a school environment. And then with the three-story modular building behind at the Mary Street end of the site. There'll be landscaping around buildings and between buildings.
So if we could go to the next slide please.
[A site plan of the new site appears on screen along with project information. The site plan shows the existing church building along Glenlyon Road and the new modular building along Merri Street. There is a basketball court in the centre that runs parallel to Chapel Street. There is text on the slide.]
Project
We have secured a nearby local site that will be the new home of the Sydney Road Community School for the next 20 years. We are also looking into an option to transform this into a permanent location for our school.
With the lease of the current site coming to an end in 2023, and the option of staying the current location unviable, we have spent the last 12 months investigating alternative options for the future location of our school. We’ve been working closely with the Department of Education and Training to find somewhere that meets the needs of our students, staff and families.
Jane
There you can see the existing hall at the front of the site on Glenlyon Road and where the modular building [will] be situated at the back of the site. The project [is] currently out to tender and we're establishing a builder for the project so that we can start construction early in the new year.
We're aiming for completion of the project by the end of next year so that we'll be ready for the school to move into their new premises by the beginning of 2023.
I think the next slide please.
[A render of the front of the new school site is on screen. There is text on the slide.]
Project milestones
Construction begins – January 2022
Completion of construction – January 2023
Next steps
The design has been developed in consultation with staff and school leadership to ensure the new site will provide a stimulating and nurturing environment for the school community.
Jane
Thank you.
So, the next steps will continue to work with the school their school community and the new neighbours to deliver the project within the set time frame. We appreciate your patience and understanding during the coming weeks and months, and we'll be making all efforts to create this exciting new school with the minimum amount of disruption and inconvenience.
Thanks. Emilia.
Emilia
Thank you so much Jane, that was great. I really appreciate it.
I would like to now introduce our Co-Principals of Sydney Road Community School, Irene Savakis and Tess Abbottsmith-Youl, who will take us through what the school has been working on.
[on-screen PowerPoint presentation]
Irene Savakis, Co Principal
Tess Abbottsmith Youl, Co Principal
- The benefits of the project
- How VSBA and the architects are working with the school
- How the new construction will support the community
- How teaching and learning is being supported through the design
Irene
Thank you, Emilia. My name is Irene, and Tess is here on my left and we're quite excited about this project.
Sydney Road Community School has been around for around 50 years and for most of that time it's been located at its current site. For a number of years now we've known that the lease was going to run out, and we did not have a new home. So, when the VSBA came to us and said that they'd found a new home for us and it was so close by to where we are now, we were very relieved to say the least. It took a lot of anxiety out for our student population and our families who were worried about where their young people were going to go to school.
So, where we are now is a very much-loved space and being able to recreate a new space that will in a sense try and replicate what we try and do here, is something that we're really grateful for.
The VSBA, as well as, the Architects have been very responsive to the needs of our community. Not only have they been responsive, but they've been quick to amend plans and consult with us every step of the way, and for that we are very, very grateful. Anything that we thought needed changing they were responsive towards and they have gone out of their way, really, to meet the needs of our students, which we are very grateful for.
Tess
The new construction [and] refurbishment of the church hall, and the addition of the modular building at the back, I think, adds a lot of value to the Brunswick community in terms of Sydney Road Community School being able to remain here.
As Irene, said we have been in Brunswick for a really long time, and we do provide a lot of support to young people and families in the area. I think in terms of the school community to be able to remain so close to where we currently are, is such a great benefit. Because we have such strong roots in the community here and so many connections and partnerships that are of such high value to our families and young people. So being able to have a location that's in almost within sight of where we are is just incredible value to us and I think of value to the school community too, so, it's very pleasing to be able to remain so close.
In terms of the design and how it's going to enhance teaching and learning, the architects have worked extremely closely with us to try and replicate some of the things that are really unique and valuable to us as a school, that we have in our current building. So if anyone watching has been to our current site it's a really unique design and part of that is a central hall which creates a really communal space with interconnectivity between learning spaces. And we've been able to achieve a design that replicates that really unique learning space as closely as possible. The architects have also done a fabulous job of looking at how we can make sure that the new site is child safe. How can we make sure that the learning spaces are connected, when they're going to be in two separate buildings? And how can we bring the outdoor space and the indoor spaces together to create really flexible and diverse learning areas?
Thanks Emilia
Emilia
Thank you so much Irene and Tess. I really appreciate that wonderful overview. Next, I would like to give you a sense of the architect's design experience and some of the things that they have thought about, and worked with, and consulted on, to put together this design for the school. And for those details I'd like to throw over to Mat. Thank you Mat.
[on-screen PowerPoint presentation]
Mat Foley, Content Studio
Sarah Kahn, Content Studio
- Overview of Content Studio
- Design elements that were taken into consideration
- Details of the consultations completed with staff and students
Mat
Thanks Emilia. So, Content Studio is a small design-focused architecture practice based in Fitzroy. We've got experience across a wide range of projects including education, community and residential projects. We have a particular interest in education, we've worked in kindergartens, primary schools and now in secondary schools. Probably done about 15 projects with the VSBA. We've got a current four or five on the go at the moment and they range from $200,000 projects to $15 million projects.
A core team for the Sydney Road Community School project, we've had a team of four working on it. Myself, Sarah, Imogen and Ben, and we've had some continuity through the design and the communication with the school.
So, the design elements that we've taken into consideration:
It was really important to create the same open feel of the flexible shared spaces and cosy feel of the smaller teaching spaces, which exist in the current Sydney Road Community School campus.
It was really important to utilise the existing church hall and the best way to insert the required classrooms and school administration spaces, as well as, to enhance and celebrate the features of the hall, including the volumes of the main space.
We wanted to basically minimise the amount of change into the church hall, [as it] has a really nice character. We wanted to basically keep as much of that character as possible by minimizing big structural changes. So, it still felt like we're within a hall rather than turning it into an institutional building. We also wanted to create you know a sense of an integrated leafy landscape and grounds the current SRCS campus provides.
We basically utilize the complex site and rear open space to create an open courtyard and landscape zone between the hall and the new mod [modular] building. Including retention and celebration of the existing gum tree at the centre of the space. So there's a big beautiful gum there which is quite a highlight.
Some details of the consultation we've taken today:
So we've been involved with the project since 2020 we've worked really closely with Irene and Tess and the school community, and also with the VSBA, to ensure the design caters for the needs of the school community. We've worked through the design from the preliminary master plan stage, schematic design development and contract documentation, with multiple workshops and design presentations held throughout each stage.
We've sought feedback and integrated the comments from the school representatives at each stage and we've achieved approvals to proceed at the conclusion of those stages.
For the specialist classrooms we held a workshop with the teaching staff to review the classrooms and their specific requirements. We've also caught up with the school community and the school council and done presentations there as well. There's possibly been a couple of missed opportunities through COVID. We would have liked to spend some more time with the actual students, but I think there'll be some more opportunities for that next year.
Okay do you mind moving to the second slide? Thank you.
[A site plan of the new site appears on screen. The site plan is the same as the earlier slide. It shows the existing church building along Glenlyon Road and the new modular building along Merri Street. There is a basketball court in the centre that runs parallel to Chapel Street]
Mat
So as Jane was saying before, you can see that the existing church hall faces Glenlyon Street with the main entry directly off the footpath. Then basically a new mod [modular] building at the rear which is accessed from Mary Street. And then a nice courtyard which basically sort of sits in between those two spaces. And that forms a circulation in connection between.
There's also a laneway, Chapel Street, which runs between Glenlyon and Merri and there's opportunities for entries off that for the students as well. It's not a through laneway so we've taken advantage of some of those opportunities.
Do you mind moving to the next slide? Thanks.
[A render of the future school building appears on screen. It is the same as the earlier slide]
Mat
The exterior of the hall from Glenlyon. The existing hall is to be refurbished and upgraded. The existing front facade onto Glenlyon Street will be retained with the new access ramp provided. So, at the moment there is no equal access and we're basically managing with some little rails. But basically managed to make that compliant and something which will provide equitable access for all.
The main reception area will be housed at the front of the existing school alongside the meeting rooms. The existing toilets and amenities will also be upgraded and redone. The main church hall is to become a library, shared space.
So, what the current school has is a lovely big open hall and it was really important that we were able to integrate that element into this new building, because, we've got this opportunity of a nice double height space. It becomes really synonymous with the way the school works. There's a big, shared area where both students and staff spend a lot of their time and it is the heart and soul of the school. We've created that space within this hall, I think, very successfully. Obviously, the proof will be in the pudding, but we’re really looking forward to how that space design develops through construction.
We've also developed a new mezzanine floor which will be constructed in the high-ceiling space and there'll be classrooms accommodated in that area. There's also a little eastern annex along Chapel Street, which will be converted into classrooms. Between those classrooms and the upstairs classrooms that'll be most of the homeroom and classrooms for the different age groups.
We've also created a new balcony and external stair off the rear of this hall which forms an escape, it is also another nice area. Because the site is quite tight, we really have to maximize the external space so we do have habitable terraces and landings, both in this building and in the modular as well.
Would you mind going to the next slide please? Thank you very much.
[A render of the future modular building appears on screen.]
Mat
This is our three-story modular building which is at the back, you can see the hall in the distance. A series of fences run along the laneway. In the image they're a little bit bare but the idea is that they'll become growing frames and will grow climbers all the way up those fences, and that'll provide both a bit of privacy for the school but also for the neighbouring properties.
The basketball court is in the distance where you can see the high fences, to stop balls going up the centre of the fence. That becomes a real focus for the school's activities during play and recess when everyone needs to get out and have a break from the classroom environment. This area will also provide active and passive play areas and informal seating and gathering spaces, and its sort of centred around that big, beautiful gum I mentioned before.
The focus for the three-story modular will be the specialist teaching spaces. This will include some of the programs that the school runs like, Junk Band. Where basically students make their own instruments and then play in a slightly informal orchestra. Sorry if I've not quite got that quite right Irene and Tess. Lots of music rooms basically recording studios, science rooms, lots of those sorts of like normal, basically spaces you have some of the more noisy parts of the school. While I guess the homerooms are generally accommodated in the hall around that big double height open space.
Would you mind moving to the next slide please?
[A render of the future school building appears on screen. There is text on the slide]
Design in Detail:
- Design summary
- Sustainable features
- Colours and palette
- Challenges faced
Mat
The sustainability features:
We're maximizing natural light throughout the space by retaining existing windows in the hall and adding new skylights. Maximizing natural ventilation by including operable windows and skylights, which is obviously a big change in the last year or two with the advent of COVID ventilation is playing a much more important role. When previously there was a lot more I guess focus on insulating buildings. We're also going to minimize demolition and changes to the Church Hall building. It's a beautiful structure we want to leave it intact as much as possible.
We're also using lots of native planting in the landscape beds so they'll both be indigenous plants too obviously native plants to Australia, but more importantly they'll be indigenous to the northern areas of Melbourne.
Colours and palette:
So we're building on the field of the current Sydney Road Community School Campus which is a unique feel, the leafy green surrounds and area interiors. We're using a palette of blues and greens alongside white, bringing a feel of bush and green landscape into the new site and providing contrast to the areas of vibe, which is utilized to make the spaces as bright and as vibrant as possible.
All our feature joinery will be in natural timbers, they'll be utilized in the key areas to bring a natural element inside and provide a crafted feel to certain areas. This complements the greens and blues used in the interior.
Externally the materials respect the surrounding context and the existing colours of the hall building. The new external decks are to be green and picking up on the green feature painting of the existing hall and the idea of linking it back to the green landscape. The new modular building is in a pale grey metal sheet, and there are some basically sort of artistic details on the rear of it.
Challenges faced:
So, achieving the layouts within the existing church hall that included all the classrooms and school administration spaces required, as well as to enhance and celebrate the features of the hall, including the main space, its been very tight to basically get all those elements of what are currently in the school into this smaller space. But I think we've made a pretty good fist of it.
Understanding another challenge was to understand and explore the existing building conditions to allow us to minimize work and changes to key structural walls and elements within the church walls. We've had to do some investigation to open up some floors, have a look into some more cavities to try to discover. As with old buildings there's not usually a lot of drawings So we've done as much investigation as possible.
With the minimal side area available, the minimal width streets adjacent to the side limits to the layouts and options for the mod [modular] and the space of the landscaped area. So the reason for the three-story mod is that basically maximizes the amount of outdoor space we can provide around it while also maximizing the amount of teaching space.
Thank you.
Emilia
Brilliant Mat, thank you so much, really appreciate that detailed response.
[on-screen PowerPoint presentation]
Q&A.
We will answer all pre-registered questions first, then will answer live questions submitted via the Q&A function.
If we don’t get to your question, we will provide a response after this event.
If you would prefer, you are welcome to contact the Victorian School Building Authority on;
Phone 1800 896 950
Email vsba@education.vic.gov.au
Emilia
Look typically we would now move to our Q&A I feel like our panellists have done a pretty excellent job in answering a lot of those typical questions.
At this time we have no pre-registered questions, so some of the things that I might just touch on again that our panelists have mentioned:
So what is the timeline of construction?
We plan to have the project complete at the conclusion of 2022 for the school to relocate and be ready for term one 2023 at the Glenlyon premises.
Students enrolled from 2023 onwards will start with Sydney Road Community School at the new site. We will continue to work with the school to ensure that the community remain updated as the project progresses. And I can't stress enough that if you have any questions or any concerns, we are here to respond to those. Myself and Pieta will do our absolute best to reach out to our panel of experts in front of you to get all the answers that you need. So any questions at all please don't hesitate.
I think I would just like to finish up with one last one, which is a quite a common question that we get, which is, was the school community consulted? And will be able to recreate things we love about our school at the new site?
The architect as Mat's pointed out, has worked collaboratively with the school the whole way, so has Jane our Senior Project Manager, to understand the various factors that make Sydney Road Community School the unique and incredible place that it is. While the school is moving we want to assure you that Irene and Tess plan to move all the culture and all the excellent stuff that we love about Sydney Road Community School with them.
Irene and Tess is there anything that you'd like to add to that?
Irene
No Emilia. I think you've expressed and summarized very well everything that all the panelists have said. We are very appreciative of this opportunity to be able to express how pleased we are that this project is going ahead, and the way the VSBA and the architects at Content Studio are how we're all working together for the best possible outcome here.
Emilia
Well on that note we will wrap it up. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to us.
Again, please don't hesitate to reach out. All the details are here. We are here to talk you through any issues big or small and we're really looking forward to seeing the new space come alive. Thank you everyone.
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