Masterplan

After the modular classroom, we adapted our school related research and thinking to a greater level, and older age group.

Torquay is a coastal town with a continuously growing population without however a senior school forcing locals to travel out of town to geelong. Torquay college, our client, is first and foremost a primary school which is as of next year expanding to include years 7-9, a move the community needed, but the question stands, what happens to the students in years 10 to 12, the years of transition, are they the expected to be traveling an hour a day in their senior years, hence our task to design a potential year 10-12 campus of torquay college.

Group 12, which has now recruited the services of Anthony 'ART' Timms (http://srd364arti.blogspot.com[please refer to this blog for a wonderfully detailed And articulated description of the groups interaction and developmental work]) aimed to answer those questions.


looking at our site, the current council offices, the shear size of the space and potential which it holds lets our imaginations run wild (something that an architect should never be allowed to do) .
before designing the school however there were a number of thing that needed to be considered and incorporated:

- the large expansive space, with strong winds (strong south-easterly winds in the winter, and north easterly winds in the summer) protection of spaces was required,
- traffic build up on grossmans road
- a community link
-the sustainability of the project
- and one that we felt was particularly important: the word TRANSITION

The word transition means 'movement, passage, or change from one position, state, stage, subject, concept' and perfectly applicable to the yr 10-12 campus- the initial transition from middle school to senior school and the transition beyond school to higher education or work, A key stage in a persons life.

applying that our aim was to create a campus that was sustainable and provided strong pathways for students, leading us to the idea of a city plan 'a self sustained well planned arrangement of buildings with clear paths'

the design shown below is a fanning radial plan, with wings for different faculties/purposes- administration/communal, humanities, arts, math and science, utilising the ideas of strong paths, separation and ownership for student, a university campus feel promoting higher education.