It was an absolute thrill to win the top prize at the Learning Environments Australasia Design Awards for the second year running. The Scientia Terrace building at Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College won both the New Building (Large) category and the overall award against the other category winners. The LEAD awards program celebrates best practice in educational design across the country.
- Overall Winner
- Winner, New Building/s or Facilities – Large
Scientia Terrace is a state-of-the-art social enterprise, sports, innovation, and science facility showcasing advanced learning technologies that both challenge and inspire students.
The six-storey building is part of a visionary 50-year masterplan on which Hayball began working with the College in 2018, which prioritises the need for contemporary STEM facilities while recognising the deep layers of history on the heritage-listed site including the legacy of the Sisters of Mercy.
The design developed through a process of co-creation with school leadership, teachers, students, parents, and alumni, and the façade was designed in response to the historic context of the Mercy Hall and chapel buildings. High levels of transparency between spaces enable opportunities for engagement between discrete disciplines, and the building offers a variety of learning settings from large laboratories to smaller seminar spaces that facilitate both modern collaborative learning and traditional teacher-directed instruction.
Jury Citation:
“The Scientia Terrace is an exemplar of educational interdisciplinary collaboration supported by and reflected in the architecture of the Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College project. The “Terrace” sits elegantly within the existing campus connected by a circular lawn that references its history of place.
The expectations of the school were gathered at the start of the project and were stated to have been surpassed at the end. The Post Occupancy Evaluation ranged from the immediately practical to the philosophical, and demonstrated that the building was valued for its educational and social uses, its inspirational beauty, and its potential to be further developed in the future.”
