The project was an urban infill exercise with the site being an asphalt playground placed between two impressive nineteenth century buildings, the Sacred Heart Church and the adjacent School Hall. Care was taken to respectfully balance the library between these autonomous presences while adding to the continuity of the site.

The literal expression of the bleeding heart of Jesus is represented in plan as a morph of a series of traditional heart shapes. Images of the Human Heart bisected by a Love Heart form the base geometry for the layout of the walls. This starting point produces a distorted plan which does not address the polite ideas of scale or proportion but rather a fantastical urban condition.

The client required a multi-functional space that functioned as an I.T. classroom, Library, Reading Recovery and a Learning Centre. The multi disciplinary space is large and column free, dissected with a high level clerestory roof formed from the overarching Crown of Thorns. The clerestory encourages a reliance on natural lighting and natural ventilation, lifting the teaching space from utilitarian to one possessing ethereal qualities with a double volume reminiscent of the adjacent church and halls.

Section

• Architects

  Suters Architects

• Location

  Kew, Victoria, Australia

• Category

  Schools

• Project Team

  Joshua McAlister, Stasinos Mantzis, Wilson Heng, Peter Smith

• Building Contractor

  Contract Control

• Project Year

  2008

• Photographs

  Gollings Photography