Kiewa Room Learning Space, Mt Beauty Primary School

The Kiewa Room project transformed isolated, gloomy classrooms into an attentive, purposeful, reflexive, fluid, interactive, vibrant series of spaces that supports a whole range of pedagogical encounters. Within this space the students appropriate spaces that suit their multimodal learning needs and respond to the affordances that the settings offer.

Project Details

Architects
No. 42 Architects

Award
Commendation Category 4: Renovation/Modernisation Under $1 million

Address
Lakeside Avenue Mt Beauty, Victoria 3747

Submitter
Ken Woodman

Cost
$300,000

Photographer
Erin Hartwig

Project Overview

The title of the room is drawn from the Kiewa River. The aim of the space was to draw two separated Yr 3/4 student classes together into one learning space with two teachers. The pedagogical approach developed by the school involved constructivist learning though and an inquiry model with some didactic skills delivery. This multimodal learning philosophy was reflected in the multi-learning settings set in a purposeful, flexible, fluid, and age appropriate educational environment.

Working with a typical light timber construction classroom building with very tight budget the design focused on the collaborative nature of the teaching staff. Sustainability focused on reusing the majority of the existing building to minimising waste and landfill. Providing a central tiered carpeted area enabled the whole student cohort to gather. The aim of this space with a low ceiling, warm carpeted floor, material covered walls, and low lighting was to create a cave-like intimate feeling. The irregular tiers provide a range of platform sizes that work either as seating or as a stage depending on the orientation of the audience. A large carpeted circle on the ground provides for a stage or a seating circle. Facing this is the Fibonacci wet area with the mathematical progression demonstrated on the face of the bench as a learning opportunity. This wet area has a new entry onto the external learning balcony providing opportunities for art, environmental science, and extern al eating.

On either side of the central spaces are two group learning spaces which are regularly reorganised to support didactic delivery or collaborative group work. Each space as a soft, relaxing, colourful breakout couch with storage below for board games in drawers. An acoustically separate meeting space supports individual direct learning support, quiet learning, or noisy small group brainstorming activities.

This project has transformed the isolated, gloomy classroom into an attentive, reflexive, interactive, vibrant series of spaces that supports the whole range of pedagogical encounters. Within this space the students appropriate spaces that suit their learning needs and respond to the affordances that the settings offer.

The title of the room is drawn from the Kiewa River. The aim of the space was to draw two separated Yr 3/4 student classes together into one learning space with two teachers. The pedagogical approach developed by the school involved constructivist learning though and an inquiry model with some didactic skills delivery. This multimodal learning philosophy was reflected in the multi-learning settings set in a purposeful, flexible, fluid, and age appropriate educational environment.

Working with a typical light timber construction classroom building with very tight budget the design focused on the collaborative nature of the teaching staff. Sustainability focused on reusing the majority of the existing building to minimising waste and landfill. Providing a central tiered carpeted area enabled the whole student cohort to gather. The aim of this space with a low ceiling, warm carpeted floor, material covered walls, and low lighting was to create a cave-like intimate feeling. The irregular tiers provide a range of platform sizes that work either as seating or as a stage depending on the orientation of the audience. A large carpeted circle on the ground provides for a stage or a seating circle. Facing this is the Fibonacci wet area with the mathematical progression demonstrated on the face of the bench as a learning opportunity. This wet area has a new entry onto the external learning balcony providing opportunities for art, environmental science, and extern al eating.

On either side of the central spaces are two group learning spaces which are regularly reorganised to support didactic delivery or collaborative group work. Each space as a soft, relaxing, colourful breakout couch with storage below for board games in drawers. An acoustically separate meeting space supports individual direct learning support, quiet learning, or noisy small group brainstorming activities.

This project has transformed the isolated, gloomy classroom into an attentive, reflexive, interactive, vibrant series of spaces that supports the whole range of pedagogical encounters. Within this space the students appropriate spaces that suit their learning needs and respond to the affordances that the settings offer.

This page last updated: Sunday 2 December 2012