Glowrey Catholic Primary School by Baldasso Cortese | on Wurundjeri Country | Images: Peter Clarke
Glowrey Catholic Primary School by Baldasso Cortese | on Wurundjeri Country | Images: Peter Clarke
Glowrey Catholic Primary School by Baldasso Cortese | on Wurundjeri Country | Images: Peter Clarke
Glowrey Catholic Primary School by Baldasso Cortese | on Wurundjeri Country | Images: Peter Clarke
Glowrey Catholic Primary School by Baldasso Cortese | on Wurundjeri Country | Images: Peter Clarke
Glowrey Catholic Primary School by Baldasso Cortese | on Wurundjeri Country | Images: Peter Clarke
Glowrey Catholic Primary School by Baldasso Cortese | on Wurundjeri Country | Images: Peter Clarke
Glowrey Catholic Primary School by Baldasso Cortese | on Wurundjeri Country | Images: Peter Clarke
Glowrey Catholic Primary School by Baldasso Cortese | on Wurundjeri Country | Images: Peter Clarke
Glowrey Catholic Primary School by Baldasso Cortese | on Wurundjeri Country | Images: Peter Clarke
BALDASSO CORTESE
Founded on collaboration, connection and creativity, Baldasso Cortese designed the award-winning Glowrey Catholic Primary School, in Wollert. BC’s Tim Pyke takes us behind the scenes…
Tell us about your practice
Baldasso Cortese is a creative architectural, master planning and interior design practice recognised and awarded for excellence in design and customer service across our core markets of Education, Health + Care, Commercial, Retail, Hospitality, Civic, Mixed-Use, Residential and Social Housing.
Our passionate team produces imaginative designs across Australia and New Zealand, with projects ranging from $1 million to $750 million. We are an established practice with a significant portfolio of work and experience, demonstrating our blend of skills and collaborative team that successfully designs and delivers large complex projects.
How would you describe your style and design principles?
At BC, we don't have a house style and believe every project should be approached for its own unique conditions and in a collaborative manner.
To guide the team, we have developed a BC Charter or a collection of ideals that guide our design processes. The eight objectives focus on; How we design and our attitudes to context, heritage, environment, and social obligations, the architecture we create and how we optimise function, embed ideas and enhance the emotional or everyday experiences of the end users.
What is your favourite material to design and work with?
As a practice, we don't have a favourite material. As architects, we feel our obligations to our clients and the environment tend to lead us towards robust, hardwearing and sustainable materials.
Tell us about the project.
Glowrey Catholic Primary School is a new learning community building incorporating nine general-purpose classrooms and a specialist project space around a large and a smaller breakout.
Dramatic wedge shape skylights flood the breakout spaces with light. A flat ceiling datum with fully glazed walls creates spatial and visual connectivity across the facility. Tri-parting glazed sliding doors allow the classrooms to open up, facilitating an extension to each direct teaching area and transparency across the learning centre to promote a strong learning culture.
The breakout spaces consist of separate zones that allow different activities and varied-sized groups of students to work and gather. The joinery elements and layouts promote collaborative work while providing smaller, quiet spaces for focused small group work.
A warm, enclosed 'cave' acts as a threshold and transition between the breakout spaces, providing a place for focused small group work. Highlighted in red and framed by faceted panels, the 'cave' provides an exceptional experience at the heart of the interior to provide a 'change of landscape' within the learning centre, allowing for a mental shift in the activities in the cave with a group.
At the school campus-scale, the stage two building provides a backdrop to the newly landscaped play areas, which with the completion of a future, stage three will begin to form a quadrangle. A singular skillion roof form is angled and splayed to provide shade in summer and sunlight in winter to the external walls and windows. Expressed columns on the perimeter of the building and batten screen frame the deep loggia spaces that encircle the building, providing shelter and a variety of gathering spaces.
What is your favourite aspect of the project?
With abundant light, the facility has an incredible feeling of connectedness across the learning community for a deep plan. The large skylights allow a sense of the passing of the day, whilst the shadows created by the screen afford differing use and reading over the transition of the seasons.
Did you use any new products or construction techniques not used previously?
The building itself is a conventional timber framed brick veneer building. What was new in our practice was using the Sculptform Aluminium Battens to create the façade screen. We used 3D modelling software to optimise the angles of the roof to shade the walls to allow students to seek shade up to lunchtime on the Autumn Equinox (21st of March), whilst the slope of the screen was optimised to obscure the lower winter sun.
What are you most proud of with this project?
With few simple moves and the distinctive use of colour, the architecture is a dynamic, distinct and beautiful outcome exceeding the modest budget.
What do you love most about your Built Environment Channel screen, and why?
The ability to see inspirational projects during our day-to-day work, sometimes even prompting a pause and change of tac on a project. We've also been known to photograph the screen on our phones!