St Aidan’s The Link is an Innovation and Design Hub that transformed an existing arts precinct constructed in the 1960s to meet the needs of current pedagogy.
Designed by Cox, The Link provides learning spaces that facilitate subjects to encourage design-led thinking and entrepreneurial skills critical to students in their future career paths.
Constrained by a limited budget, the Cox design team and school leadership team embraced the opportunity to reuse the existing classrooms and build upon the industrial aesthetic rather than demolishing and starting anew.
Albeit conventional, these clusters of brick buildings carried a lot of sentimental value as the oldest buildings remained on the school grounds.
The design brief placed a strong focus on wellness and student-centred education which were translated into diverse and flexible spaces.
The savings made by re-using the existing structure were spent on creating memorable courtyard spaces to support both informal and formal learning and play.
Existing solid classroom walls and high-level windows were replaced with full-height glazing and louvers to increase transparency and cross ventilation between the street and building, through to the classrooms and courtyards.
The ground floor workshops are multimodal learning spaces that encourage collaboration.
The finishes are robust and durable to allow students to work with a vast array of art, design, technology, and construction materials.
Folding doors open up the workshops onto both courtyards and encourage classes to spill out into the landscape for group-based learning.
The courtyards also serve as an exhibition and gathering space for events.
Timber nests cantilevered from the existing corridors create opportunities for small groups or personalized learning and offer a place where students can take a break from the intensity of the classroom.
The courtyard canopy forms are designed to capture prevailing winds into the spaces.
Both canopies are supported by the existing structure to keep the ground plane as open and flexible as possible.
As expected due to the nature of the existing building, the project was met with many latent conditions and involved the crucial design and structural resolution with consultants.
Cox Architecture utilized an innovative method of virtual reality and augmented reality experience in the form of a phone app, to engage with stakeholders, including the contractor and subcontractors, to communicate our ideas effectively and powerfully.
Project Details
Completion Date – 2017
Project Team
Architecture
Cox Architecture
COX is a design-focused contemporary architectural practice with studios located in every major Australian city and a history spanning 60 years.
The key to their ethos is supporting the public life of our cities. Cox does this by ensuring each project makes positive contributions to its public realm – giving more than it takes.
Photography
Toby Scott
Toby is an established and widely published commercial photographer specializing in architecture, interiors, and lifestyle photography.
Photo Gallery
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Design © 2022 Cox Architecture. All Rights Reserved.| Images © 2022 Toby Scott. All Rights Reserved.
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