Australian Institute of Architects Sunshine Coast Regional Awards

Fulton Trotter Architects has three projects featured in the Australian Institute of Architects Sunshine Coast Regional Architecture Awards which will be announced tonight in Noosa.

Gympie Flexible Learning Centre

Gympie Flexible Learning Centre, completed in 2011, was designed by Fulton Trotter Architects as a sophisticated and dynamic space to nurture the futures of 50 students at the margins of the traditional education system.
The Gympie Flexible Learning Centre environment includes community areas, small teaching spaces, sound recording studios, workshops, and food preparation spaces, all in a setting which is dynamic as well as safe.

It is located nearby to the Gympie education precinct but very purposefully designed to stand apart as a place where possibility and difference are celebrated. The precast concrete exterior and generally industrial format mixed with flashes of colour and quirkiness reinforce this message.

The plan places all spaces around a community courtyard, part roofed and part open, with food service areas and amenities as the core. Small teaching spaces and a separate administration zone complete the plan.

Click here for images of Gympie Flexible Learning Centre

St Patrick’s Primary School, Trinity Building, Gympie

St Patrick’s Primary School was completed in 2011 and includes a new building to house Administration and the Library, a hall, and a new central children’s amenities building.

The arrangement of spaces has the library sitting over the new administration area, and adjacent to the hall. This affords the Library with expansive views of the rolling landscape of Gympie both north and south, and spatially connecting its occupants to the environment.

It also allows the hall space with its engineered timber structure to reach out over the playground to provide a soft connection of formal function space to general play or assembly areas.

Visually, the Trinity building forms a bridge between the austere forms of the church and the “timber and tin” classroom building, using tilt up concrete external walls similarly coloured to the church on the east and broad light edges responding to the classrooms on the west.

Click here for images of St Patrick’s Primary School

St Joseph’s Primary School Nambour

St Joseph’s Primary School was completed in 2012 and is located on a two hectare hillside site in Nambour.

A master plan for the site aimed to build on the natural ‘layering’ of the site; formal substantial buildings at the top end of the site and a gradual loosening of that formality as the site transitions through a series of platforms down the hillside.

This arrangement allows the site and students to ‘grow-up’. By locating the youngest students in the most natural setting and gradually allowing them to ‘grow’ into the more formal and solid areas of the site as they advance towards completion of primary school.

The light weight and natural buildings of the lower site blend within their tree filled setting providing a nurturing environment for the younger students. Progressing up the site, the buildings become more solid, reflecting the older students increasing knowledge and abilities.

Within this context, the library and hall form a new centre of the school. While still reflecting the layering of the site, the library and hall is designed as a distinctive and iconic building that reflects its significance as the central hub of learning within the school.

Click here for images of St Joseph’s Primary School Nambour

Good luck to all three projects!