Australian Public Education

The project provides additional facilities to two existing schools in Cooks Hill aiming to extend the scope of their alternative educational models. Enrolments to private secondary schools has steadily increased since the 1970s, a trend believed to continue due to the inequitable funding arrangements between Australian public and private schools. As a result certain schools no longer represent a microcosm but a select portion of society. Such social stratification disadvantages not only certain minorities but also attendees of private schools whom experience a limited exposure to all that society has to offer. The project aligns and enriches such ideals of equity and fairness in education. De-instiutionalised learning opportunities are created across spaces that embody more democratic values than those found in current schools.

“Public education as a public good... relates to ‘ownership’. In this context, public education is the same as public utility: owned by the state, funded from its citizens’ taxes, and managed by the state on the public’s behalf.... public education should be understood not as a commodity to be used solely for the benefit of individuals but as a community resource to which everyone has rights of access, and which is non-exclusionary – a kind of education commons.” - Alan Reid

“.... we know we’ll be told that it’s all about school choice, something which is used to justify a range of oddities in our framework of schools. My School shows that choice of a fee-charging school is available only to those already advantaged. This choice is an illusion for half the population.... ... Having been school principals.... we were told about, and believed the importance of the school as a centre of the community and a source of the social and cultural capital that makes communities work. But less than a third of our schools now have an enrolment which resembles the cross- section of people in the school’s local area. Schools and communities are drifting apart. The social diversity which previous generations witnessed within schools is increasingly evident between them.” - Chris Bonnor

Big Picture Cooks Hill Campus

... uses the Big Picture Learning framework to educate one student at a time in a community of learners where parents, advisors and mentors from the community assist students through their own self-directed learning. The Big Picture model provides an alternative to students in years 9 – 12 who have become disengaged from mainstream education which entails students undertaking interest driven project based learning including one day a week internship under a mentor.

- Alterations to ‘Big Picture’ focuses on intermediate spaces in line with contemporary educative design generating activity towards a newly created central gathering space....

WEA Hunter

Is a not for profit institution providing alternate pathways to training and education with a focus on minority groups including job seekers, migrants, refugees, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, young people, at risk youths and people with special needs.

- A new public square is created at the rear of WEA to promote ownership and civic values for new people to the city / country or those who may have little in their lives. Ground floor workshop facilities sit adjacent to drop-in sleeping units, a community kitchen and a new entrance in the direction of Life Without Barriers and Centrelink. Temporary housing on the top two levels, as the only with solar access to the north, are to perhaps be run by Life Without Barriers and include 12 single and 2 ‘4 person’ family units. The hallways have been designed as occupiable verandah spaces with dwelling kitchen benches opening onto seating and planter boxes along the facade. The facade is reflective of this behaviour with glazed and solid casement windows, permitting an adaptable environment.

Proposal

- The site has been divided into three primary external spaces framed by the proposed narrow buildings that occupy the boundaries and thresholds between.... Each space sits adjacent to a building along Laman St. each with a central multifunctional staircase. Taking cues from Herman Hertzberger these staircases affect surrounding spaces, permit congregation and informal seating, act as entrances and thresholds to the outdoors while being adaptable and able to coorindate the internal environment with layered facade systems. The staircases to the northern buildings continue the rhythm of existing staircases with various doors, windows and planting arranged in a formal collanade along the West to East axis through all sites. Various public entrances have been made to the spaces to permit connections with the city.

- Publicly accessible facilities between the two schools, aim to encourage institutional collaboration in line with the schools’ educative frameworks.

- A new entrance is created to Big Picture adjacent to a parent room and classroom opening onto the street. A central brick courtyard sits beyond, outside the principles office for informal lessons and meetings while a student run cafe using produce from the garden can be opened to the public. A ground floor study space sits adjacent to WEA, the permeability of the central staircase announces the garden to the street, the garden is raised to provide a heirachy to the space, internal and external kitchens to the garden are to be used by the community and in tern provide opportunities for student mentorship, flexible steps look towards the garden, library and gallery spaces sit elevated in the centre of the site exhibiting student works and the workings of the school.

- The built form changes reflective of the space it sits adjacent to stepping from walls, to open roofs, to four and then three storey framed timber construction, to floating first floor elements, to retaining masonary walls with post and beam construction above, to brick walled elements embedded in the landscape. The permeability of the proposal stands to represent the inclusivity and openess of Cooks Hill Commons standing opposed to the past impermeable brick institutional buildings alongside.