issue 55. 2013 ®

®
NAB Docklands
The BRAGGS
Bentleigh School
Charles Wilson
Veldhoen + Company
60 Richmond
issue 55. 2013
AUstralia $16.50 New Zealand $17.50
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portfolioindesign 139
words Mark Scruby
photography Emma Cross
architect DWP|SUTERS
location Melbourne | AUS
PROJECT Bentleigh School
Reflective
Education
A Melbourne school has added to its award-winning
eco credentials with a sublime meditation centre
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portfolioindesign 141
PREVIOUS PAGE
Materials and colours
accentuate the link
between the centre and the
surrounding landscape of
trees and water courses
THIS PAGE top The building
is an exquisite timber box.
The billabong will soon be
home to endangered native
fish species
Below left Site plan
Below right The centre
can be occupied in many
ways, providing spaces
for classes and events,
but also encouraging
spontaneity and
informal gatherings
echnology is often singled out as an indicator
of rapid change in the education system
– think preppies toting iPads and tenyear-olds editing down their own high-def
movies for homework – but architects are doing a fair
job of marking out the frontiers of a post-‘three Rs’
curriculum, too. Take the brand new Meditation and
Indigenous Cultural Centre designed by DWP Suters
for Bentleigh Secondary College, in Melbourne’s
south-eastern suburbs. The small timber-clad pavilion
sits amongst wetlands on a campus recently named
the World’s Most Sustainable Education Institution
at the International Green Awards in London. It
was designed as a hub for the school’s mindfulness
meditation curriculum, and as an educational tool for
learning about sustainable design.
The client’s initial thoughts were of a hay bale
building – an obvious strategy for showing the
importance of material selection to sustainability
– but, faced with a tight budget, a quest was made
for materials that could be sourced for free or at
cost. Entrepreneurialism and opportunity led to
the selection of renewably harvested timber as the
primary construction material, and a shift in focus to
the central theme of carbon capture. It’s estimated
that a plantation tree absorbs and retains around a
quarter of a tonne of carbon during its lifetime, and
the Meditation and Indigenous Cultural Centre is
constructed almost exclusively from plantation timber.
This predominance of wood provides a crucial leaping
off point for education about sustainable design
by highlighting the potential for making positive
environmental decisions during construction, as an
extension to more widely understood and appreciated
operational concepts, such as photovoltaics and water
recycling. Just as importantly, however, it shows how
sustainability and aesthetics can converge through a
striking juxtaposition between exterior and interior
materiality. Silvertop Ash cladding on the outside has
already begun to soften and silver with exposure to
the elements. It provides an explicit visual link to the
colours of the surrounding indigenous flora and allows
the building to recede ever so slightly into the wetland.
In direct and deliberate contrast, Hoop pine plywood
lining inside has been clear-lacquered to intensify
its natural golden hue. As intended by the architects,
this contrast between inside and out gives physical
representation to its main purpose as a meditation
space, through the notion of an inner and outer self.
An entry zone with lowered ceiling provides a
sense of transition from the landscape to the interior,
and provokes a sense of calm – an essential strategy
in preparing, for example, a group of fifteen-year-old
boys for a meditation class! “Surprise and delight” is
an over used phrase with regard to design of all kinds,
but here it is incredibly apt. From the entry zone, the
visitor passes into the main space and is unexpectedly
cosseted in a wash of golden warmth, with carefully
T
EXISTING SCHOOL
BUILDING
EXISITING SCHOOL
NEW PAVILION
WETLAND PRECINCT
EXISTING SCHOOL
BUILDING
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portfolioindesign 143
framed outward views retaining a sense of connection
to the natural landscape.
To ensure an appropriate interior environment
for meditation at all times of the year, heating and
cooling will be provided by a ground source heat pump
– a highly efficient system that extracts heat from the
earth in winter and transfers heat from the building
back into the earth in summer, which will no doubt
intrigue budding young physicists and engineers at the
school. Yet, once again, it’s a much more fundamental
strategy that best illustrates the potential of
sustainable design – the orientation of windows and
positioning of large awnings maximises solar heat
gain in winter and provides shade in summer, and
louvred breezeways encourage cross-ventilation. It is
pleasing to think of a class of high school kids learning
the lessons of good design by experiencing it here,
first hand, on a scorching February afternoon.
When the weather is friendlier, those students
will also enjoy the building’s external areas. Three
covered decks inserted into the plan define its fluid,
organic internal spaces, while also creating ambiguity
around ideas of inside and out, front and back. In this
way, the building flows out into its surroundings. The
architects describe it as being like a “piece of furniture
in the forest … to be sat in, on and around.”
Students can look out over a billabong, home to
endangered native fish species. In time, an indigenous
food garden will grow here too, and the pavilion will
play host to everything from drama and community
events, to an Indigenous artist-in-residence program.
And if these modern kids do ever need a place for some
reading, writing and ‘rithmetic, this would be the
perfect spot for that too!
Mark Scruby is a Melbourne-based
freelance writer on architecture.
Learning the lessons of
good design...first hand
Mark Scruby
OPPOSITE (TOP) Over time,
the Silver Top Ash cladding
will soften to a natural silver
colour and the building will
recede a little into the
surrounding bush
opposite (BELOW) Unlike
traditional school buildings,
both indoor and outdoor
spaces have been designed
to be integral to the daily
curriculum
ABOVE Hoop Pine plywood
lining in the meditation
space accentuates the
organic curves in the
plan and casts the interior
in a golden hue
BENTLEIGH SCHOOL
PRINCIPal ARCHITECT
Nick Cini
PROJECT TEAM John Schout,
Shea O’Donoghue
STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Burns Hamilton
SERVICES ENGINEER
Cortese Consultants
BUILDING SURVEYOR Group 4
BUILDING AND PROJECT
MANAGER Dzine
Construction Group
BUDGET $200,000
TIME TO COMPLETE 4 months
TOTAL FLOOR AREA 109m2
dwp|suters
(61 3) 9418 3333
dwpsuters.com.au
FINISHES All timber
flooring finished in Wattyl
‘Water-Based’ clear formulae,
while all internal plywood wall
FURNITURE Meditation sitting
panels are painted in Wattyl
stool/bench by Blue Banyan. Cotton ‘White’. External timber is
drill, with 100% recycled fibre
finished in a wood preservative
wadding, cushions in ‘Cornflower coating from Quantum. Also on
Blue’ also from Blue Banyan.
Exterior, roof and guttering
completed in ‘Trimdeck’ roof
LIGHTING Generally
sheeting from BlueScope
throughout, internal downlights
Colourbond. Generally
from Sunny Australia Lighting,
throughout, Blackbutt timber
external downlights and deck
flooring from Bowens Bentleigh
lights from Crompton Lighting.
East. While Ceiling and Store
All electrical work completed
Room walls are finished in
by Powercomm Electrical.
plasterboard from Boral. Internal
walls completed from Hoop Pine
A Grade plywood from Austral
Plywood, and floor, wall and
ceiling insulation from Knauf Earth
Wool. All external landscaping
from Burdett’s Garden Supplies.
FIXED AND FITTED Exterior
timber trusses from Pryda.
Throughout, glass louvre
windows from Breezway
Altair Louvres and louvre
blades from Viridian. Roof
ladder access bracket points
from Anchored. Kitchen
benchtop made from custom
Redgum slab, provided by client.
Anchored anchored.com.au (61 3) 9555 3586 Austral Plywood australply.com.au (61 7) 3426 8666 Blue Banyan bluebanyan.com.au
(61 3) 8370 6250 BlueScope Colourbond bluescopesteel.com.au (61) 1800 800 789 Boral boral.com.au (61 2) 9033 4010 Bowens Bentleigh
East bowens.com.au (61 3) 9579 1188 Breezway Altair Louvres breezeway.com.au (61) 1800 777 758 Burdett’s Garden Supplies burdetts.com.au
(61 3) 9789 8266 Crompton Lighting crompton.com.au (61 3) 9329 1433 Knauf Earth Wool knaufinsulation.com.au (61 7) 3393 7300
Powercomm Electrical power-comm.com.au Pryda pryda.com.au (61 3) 9554 7001 Quantum qtf.com.au (61 3) 9776 8831 Sunny Australia
Lighting sunnylighting.com.au (61 3) 9532 3168 Viridian viridianglass.com (61 2) 9756 2100 Wattyl wattyl.com.au (61 2) 8867 3333
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