Daylight-illuminated Spaces in the MLC School Senior Centre

With an eye on the future of collaborative work-place environments the Senior Centre enhances learner-centred design principles by providing daylight-illuminated spaces that enable students to take increasing responsibility for their own learning and be more self-directed in how they shape their learning experience. Open areas have successfully blurred the boundaries between spaces such that staff and students are often working side by side in their preparation time. The glass pods suspended throughout the building encourage senior students to make the most of the opportunity for private study, small group study or meetings with teachers. There is a harmonious and successfully realised balance between open collaborative spaces, performance, practical and more traditional spaces.

At the heart of the Senior Centre is a central atrium that functions as a lightwell with a large skylight above illuminating each level, including the ground floor amphitheatre. The pop- out meeting and quiet rooms addressing the atrium energise its volume with the activities clearly visible within. Careful consideration for the staging of small but important moments of human activity are enabled with the inclusion of Juliette balconies within the large volume interior.

The simple yet sophisticated facade of the Senior Centre is composed of a full height, double-glazed, high performance envelope, which maximises access to daylight. A skin of perforated folded aluminium panels wraps around the glazed facade, providing a combination of sun-shading and privacy.

The automated louvre windows naturally ventilate the building. In instances the Senior Centre facade is pierced by large pop-out windows, which offer views and vignettes of the learning experience happening within the building. The immediacy of raw concrete is framed throughout with sharp detailing and the management of natural and artificial lighting that imparts warmth and delight to this high-quality place of learning.

Project Information

Architect: BVN

Photography: Ben Guthrie