Lahznimmo architects, in association with Wilson Architects, were invited to submit a shortlisted design competition for the Redevelopment of Arthur Phillip High School and Parramatta Public School. The new high school is to be the first high-rise school for New South Wales, and located within the urban setting of Parramatta CBD, and looks to become a benchmark for future high-rise school planning and pedagogy.
The competition scheme challenged the masterplan siting of the high school by situating the high rise component closer to the Parramatta CBD, and adjacent the new Parramatta Square Western Sydney University campus - creating a new educational focus for Parramatta within its Civic heart.
Within the new high school, flexible learning spaces are clustered around a two storey high year group community, which maximises the classroom amenity, as well as providing valuable flexible break out space. Each cluster of classrooms can support a range of cohorts from 30 students up to 90 students. Classroms were envisaged both physically flexible (ie moving walls, furniture etc) as well pedagogically flexible, switching technology to align with varied learning modalities.