The Mabel Fidler Building forms a new entry and centre for learning at Ravenswood School for Girls and functions as the central hub within the school.

The school had never had a true entrance. The new building creates a heart to the school, containing administrative and library facilities, and acts as a hub providing circulation and links to the different levels in the older existing school buildings.  

It contains the front door to the street and the back door to the oval and it is the pivot point between the sporting and the academic part of the school.

DESIGN DESCRIPTION   

The design was initiated through a master planning process focused on creating an 'attractive, imaginative and stimulating' learning environment that empowers students and facilitates self directed learning.

The building is designed to be in scale with the existing school buildings and be seen as a modern insertion into a campus of varied buildings.

Site accessibility due to level changes and difficulty of way finding has always been an issue for the school, along with the usability of external areas. The Mabel Fidler Building project is designed to address these issues.

Raising the library onto the upper level created dramatic cantilevers under which are a number of different spaces protected from the elements where informal learning can take place.

The new entry courtyard provides an external space for the school community, partially covered while providing maximum usability.

Administration and the new junior and senior libraries address the courtyard along with the new café that links the courtyard to the oval.

The building aims to bring together both passive and active design solutions to sustainability and allow the initiatives to be utilised in the education program for the girls.

The building has been designed as a mixed-mode building that is able to operate completely with natural ventilation. Conversely, on extreme weather condition days, the space can be air conditioned.

In order to achieve this, the building features a double-skin façade that creates a cavity that in winter is kept closed to retain heat and in summer opens automatically to release heat.

The new library spaces bear little relation to traditional library design, instead the focus is on flexibility and the opportunity for students to come together in large groups or retreat to quiet spaces for individual reading.

A large timber stair is a surprising and dominant feature that serves the functional purpose of connecting two levels of the space and also acts as a grandstand providing seating.

The choice of materials responds to the latest technological developments, whilst the lower levels are finished in brick making the link back to the material of the older school buildings.

The upper levels are clad in a polycarbonate material that is being used for the first time on a non-industrial building in Australia.

This allowed the internal walls of the library to be finished in translucent white glass that can be written on which increases the informality and flexibility of the learning experience.

The scheme provides much needed vertical and horizontal connectivity for the school. The proposal unifies both landscape and environmentally sustainable design principals. The facilities allow for best practice and ensure the school’s philosophy of flexibility and an individual approach to teaching and learning.

ACCOLADES       

RAIA NSW Sir John Sulman Medal for Outstanding Public Architecture
2012 Steel Design Award

PRODUCTS

FACADE PANEL
RODECA, PC 2540 40 MM TRANSLUCENT POLYCARBONATE PANELS

BRICKWORK
AUSTRAL BRICKS, BOWRAL BLUE BRICK

PAVING
AUSTRAL BRICKS, BOWRAL BLUE BRICK PAVER

TIMBER WALL PANELLING INTERNAL
SUPAWOOD ARCHITECTURAL LINING SYSTEMS, ANAGRE VENEERED MDF PANEL

TIMBER CEILING PANEL
SUPAWOOD ARCHITECTURAL LINING SYSTEMS, ANAGRE VENEERED MDF PANEL

TIMBER CEILING BATTEN
CONCEPT CLICK, SPOTTED GUM 60X40 MM TIMBER BATTEN CEILING

HIGH PERFORMANCE GLAZING
CHINA SOUTHERN GLASS PTY LTD, 6CED12-52ON

METAL CEILING
ARMSTRONG CEILING SYSTEMS, PERFORATED METAL CEILING SYSTEM

LIGHTING
AUSTUBE PTY LTD, LINEAR SLOT TYPE LIGHTING

FLOOR FINISH
ECO FLOORING SYSTEMS, BAMBOO FLOOR

CARPET
DESSO, FLUX CARPET TILE

RUG
DESIGNER RUGS, CUSTOM DESIGNED WOOL RUGS

GREEN WALL
JUNGLEFY, GREEN WALL SYSTEM

LIBRARY SHELVING
ABAX, MOBILE AND FIXED LIBRARY SHELVING

ROOFING
LYSAGHT, LYSAGHT LONGLINE