Australia’s John Wardle Architects and collaborating USA architects NADAAA will go down in history as receiving the inaugural Daryl Jackson Award for Educational Architecture at the 2015 National Architecture Awards.
The firms were awarded the prize for their Melbourne School of Design faculty building at the University of Melbourne, the jury commenting that the project successfully engages with its context in distinctively different ways and sets new standards in the design of education facilities.
“[The Melbourne School of Design] takes every opportunity to foster collaboration in undergraduate and graduate research, teaching and learning as well as cleverly integrating a variety of materials and construction and fabrication techniques,” reads the citation.
“The building is itself an education vehicle, a veritable architecture of pedagogy.”
John Wardle Architects & NADAAA were placed just ahead of the new UTS Science Faculty, Building 7 by Durbach Block Jaggers Architects & BVN which received an Architecture Award. Projects from CO-AP Architects and John Wardle Architects in association with Phillips/Pilkington Architects also received commendations from the jury in the Education Architecture category.
View the full list of winning projects from the 2015 National Architecture Awards here.
Read the full jury citation for Melbourne School of Design by John Wardle Architects & NADAAA and see the other awarded projects in the Education Architecture category below:
Photography by John Gollings
Jury Citation: The Melbourne School of Design (MSD) has given the University of Melbourne a building of outstanding quality and delivered a complex educational program. As an urban design move, it clarifies circulation in this part of the Parkville campus. The building successfully engages with its context in distinctively different ways, such as the sculptured landscape south lawn above the building’s submerged library and the activated main entry court to the east. The Joseph Reed-designed heritage facade is skilfully integrated both internally (with humour) and externally through the juxtaposition of finely detailed perforated corrugated zinc sunscreens. A major circulation path runs through the building. This has the benefit of showing off the MSD’s workings, such as the digital fabrication laboratory, timber workshop and library. There are also two major exhibition spaces on the ground floor. Education is on full display.
Every space within the building is exploited to create breakout spaces, learning and study opportunities and places for functions and events. The spectacular central atrium, with its finely detailed suspended timber-clad studios, provides excellent visual and physical interconnection between students and staff. The building explains its operation through architecture. It reveals layers of construction as tools to teach. The exposure of building systems, jointing techniques and operable elements like windows and partitions is a lesson in itself. A high level of detail is evident throughout the building, in spite of the variety and complexity of spaces and functional requirements.
The Melbourne School of Design sets new standards in the design of education facilities. It takes every opportunity to foster collaboration in undergraduate and graduate research, teaching and learning as well as cleverly integrating a variety of materials and construction and fabrication techniques. The building is itself an education vehicle, a veritable architecture of pedagogy.
OTHER AWARDS
Photography by Darren Bradley
- Commendation for Educational Architecture – Camperdown Childcare by CO-AP (Architects) (NSW)
- Commendation for Educational Architecture – Jeffrey Smart Building, University of South Australia by John Wardle Architects in association with Phillips/Pilkington Architects (SA)
