BVN Donovan Hill is set to design Australia’s most innovative school in conjunction with the NSW Department of Education and Communities and leader in contemporary education, UK based Stephen Heppell.
Dubbed the Lindfield Learning Village, the new school is envisioned as a centre for learning “from birth to death”, and will consist of pre-school, mixed primary and high school facilities that will eventually incorporate university level subjects.
Unlike traditional models of learning, the Lindfield Learning Village will aim at teaching by stage and not the age of students.
“There will be schools within the school, making them flexible, easy to change and collaborative among themselves,” explains NSW director of public schools, Meredith Ash.
The new school will occupy the vacated UTS Kuring-gai campus in North Sydney, which won the Sulman Medal for Architecture in 1978. The building will be handed over to the Department of Education and Communities next year as part of a land swap with the university.
The building is particularly suited to support the proposed learning structure as it was designed based on the concept of an Italian hill village with external fortressing and internal circulation.
According to BVN Donovan Hill, it is still early days with the design proposal, with the practice to undertake a series of community consultation workshops with the Department and Heppell. The first stage of public consultations will close on August 18.
A website, Lindfield.mindmixer.com, has also been launched to enable anyone with an interest in the future of education to participate in and provide feedback on the project.
