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Brisbane Girls Grammar School’s Creative Learning Centre

Brisbane Girls Grammar School’s Creative Learning Centre is a dynamic and contemporary six-storey, Australian built facility. It was recognised with Australia’s highest architectural accolade the Sir Zelman Cowen Award for Public Buildings.

The aesthetic, logistical and sustainability focussed outcome required imaginative thinking by the design team. It is this design philosophy which marks the Centre as an architectural and educational feat.  It simultaneously addresses the requirements of the specific learning needs of adolescent girls, and preserves the character of the pre-existing site while successfully bringing the Centre into the 21st century.

Completed in 2007, the project took seventeen months and comprises a building of 8500m2 as well as two car park levels.  It features exposed concrete surfaces, open ceiling spaces, signature K columns and an impressive western facade, the Centre is a significant and bold departure from traditional school buildings.

The Centre’s unusual visual form is, in large part, designed to provide a vast number of social spaces which promote interaction between students and to “preserve sightlines to and from the school’s historic foundation buildings”.

The western facade of the building is exposed to the Inner City Bypass and the school wished to have a facade that “gave” something to the community, the final solution — a black and white painted wall with a vertically slatted sun shield — has created a moving, fluid-like visual effect and has established the building as a landmark structure on the Brisbane landscape.

Contact

Website: www.bggs.qld.edu.au