The Victorian government has released designs for a new vertical primary school in North Melbourne.
North Melbourne Hill Primary School, designed by ARM Architecture, will also include a kindergarten as part of its vertical campus.
To be located on Molesworth Street in North Melbourne, the school will have multi-purpose classrooms, breakout spaces, a kitchen garden, a library and a gymnasium, which will also be accessible to community outside school hours.
The proposed North Melbourne Hill Primary School by ARM Architecture.
Image: Victorian School Building Authority
ARM Architecture has worked with Bush Projects in masterplanning the site.
“We have imagined the campus as a big cloud — something dynamic, filled of knowledge, dreams, aspirations and data. Our imaginary cloud hovers over and through the site, and is a bubbling network of interconnected thoughts, themes, and hotspots mapped three dimensionally,” said Andrew Lilleyman, a director of ARM Architecture.
“It is realized in the building’s architecture as bubble-like entrances at street level; cantilevered forms for the kindergarten space on the top floor; and when sliced through, radiating patterns to the sun shading to the main Molesworth facade. The outdoor spaces are included in this network of patterning, there are swirls and rounded shapes form play areas, topography, soft and hard landscaping.”
The large, flexible, landscaped playground space will be universally accessible with play equipment, seating and tiered amphitheatre for events and performances. It will also be accessible to the community outside school hours.
The kindergarten will be located on level five of the building and will include two children’s rooms and an outdoor learning area with a sandpit and a cubby house.
A tree-lined laneway to the south of the site will provide separate access to the school, kindergarten and sports courts.
Construction is expected to start in mid 2021 and the school will open in 2023.
North Melbourne Hill Primary School is the eighth vertical school to be announced by the Victorian government and other states have also introduced similar high rise schools in inner city environments.
