A vertical high-school designed by Gray Puksand architects is due to be open and operating in the Melbourne suburb of Prahran by 2019.
Plans for the brand new four-storey Prahran High School on High Street were revealed by Victorian state government last week ahead of site preparation and civil works due to commence before the close of April.
The standalone co-educational secondary school for 650 students will be located adjacent to an existing educational precinct that includes Melbourne Polytechnic and the National Institute of Circus Arts.
Gray Puksand are behind the design of the school which will feature an atrium at the centre of the building, modern teaching areas, a main performance space and outdoor areas on every level.
On the ground floor will be the library, music and drama facilities to fully utilise the large ceiling heights
Levels 1, 2 and 3 will house the science, art and food technology spaces to take advantage of the northern aspect with direct access to the outdoor learning terraces
It is the first of two Melbourne schools the firm is designing for the state government as part of a tender it won back in late 2015. The second is South Melbourne Park Primary School on Albert Drive Road which was also gazetted by the state government on the Victorian School Building Authority website.
Both are also part of a massive $2.4 billion investment from taxpayers into upgrading the state’s education infrastructure. This will include 42 new schools, the majority of which will be architect-designed.
Gray Puksand and others like Hayball and Baade Harbour have been big beneficiaries of the investment, winning multiple tenders for brand new schools in and around Melbourne. But none have benefitted more than educational specialists, Clarke Hopkins Clarke architects who now has more than a dozen new school projects on the go.
Silver Thomas Handley, H20 Architects, Brand Architects, Baade Harbour, Law Architects, Minx Architecture and others are also designing schools as part of the infrastructure funding.
