Melbourne Grammar School Modern Architecture by John Wardle Architects

John Wardle Architects has completed a project of Melbourne Grammar School, located in South Yarra, Victoria, Australia. It is a prominent Melbourne secondary school, sparsely built around lush sporting fields, where the student’s character is developed in competition. The architect received the brief as the objectives to create a new campus entry, consolidate the school’s library facilities and provide supporting lecture theater and seminar room spaces to forge a new campus heart focused on learning.

The architecture design comprised of a series of inter-linked pavilions, maintaining the continuation of the scale and rythym of the school’s frontage to Domain Road. Each link is glazed encouraging visibility through to the campus interior. Main entry provides a view of the Quadrangle building weaving the old and new together visually.

Each pavilion has its own individual expression to the public on Domain Road. The seminar rooms cantilever toward the street. Reflective glass louvers provides two functions: allow cinematic views to the gardens and at the same time protecting some privacy from the street.

Main body of the library comprises a series of giant steel framed windows of varying shapes with a series of overlaid patterns to glass within. The patterning alludes to the random ashlar block work of the buildings on site. From the inside, the various windows frame serves a different views to the greenery garden beyond.

Main book collections in the library are stored in the book stack pavilion which is clad in a burnished brick with its own bond. The bond includes several vertical bricks stacked on end and the main wall folds back to highlight these book-like bricks set into the surface.

The overall architecture design of the building offers an outward focused learning for its students as it captured the multitude of landscape and contextual views of the city. The book stack pavilion opens with a massive window toward the main sporting field. A glass link for administrative functions brushes close to the intricate roof pediments and quoining of the original quadrangle building.

Via. Photography by Dianna Snape, Trevor Mein, and Peter Hyatt.