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PEGS Junior Boys Building

This is a project by McBride Charles Ryan and it is located at Melbourne, Australia. Project's program: Educational building. There are ten images for PEGS Junior Boys Building.

: © John Gollings / GollingsPidgeon

Project details

Project name: PEGS Junior Boys Building
Location: Melbourne, Australia
Program: Educational building
Area: Site Area: ~1,650 m2 • Building Area: 822 m2 • Total Floor Area: 1,650 m2
Year: Completion: 2011
Project by: McBride Charles Ryan
Team: Principal Architects: Rob McBride, Debbie-Lyn Ryan • Project Team: Benedikt Josef, Amelia Borg, Natasha Maben

Project images

Designer's statement

Penleigh and Essendon Junior Boys School began in an Italianate mansion on windy hill, opposite the Essendon Footy Club. This building is exceptional in a residential area where Federation housing dominates. Slowly the school has accumulated much of the property in the block bounded by Nicholson, Raleigh, Napier & Fletcher Streets. Many of the ‘houses’ are now occupied by the school. This project, a two storey year 5 & 6 block with 3 classrooms above and below, is an important addition to the school and public interface to Nicholson Street.

We wanted this building to acknowledge and exploit its unusual urban condition. All wanted this building to be a unique acknowledgment of an important threshold stage in the boy’s school life. All wanted more than just good accommodation, and we wanted a building of the imagination.

This proposal takes just the silhouette of a Federation Home, it is up-scaled, extruded and sliced. The front of the building might be described perhaps as a haunted house, the centre (the extrusion) is vaguely a Shinto Shrine, the rear (which interfaces with the schools ovals), if you squint — The Big Top.

The planning is arranged so as to provide northern courtyards to the ground floor classrooms, upstairs the corridor is switched to reduce overlooking to the adjacent neighbour. The ground floor Grade 5 classrooms have rich deep colours and an earthy ambience. The first floor is ethereal. With more than a nod to Utzons Bagsvaerd Church the complex silhouette is smoothed to a cloudlike shape. The extruded chimney a source of light and a means of naturally ventilating the classroom space.