GEELONG COLLEGE – JUNIOR SCHOOL

Winner of the Henry Bastow Award for Educational Architecture, and the Regional Prize in the 2021 Victorian Architecture Awards, Geelong College Junior School ⁠is a testament to the creative vision of the John Wardle Studio team. The new Junior School arrangement resembles a miniature town plan. Squares, plazas and landscaped courtyards are sequenced in between the buildings. Some aspects of the project are made more public, others more protected and some frame the landscape.

Working alongside the Wardle design team, including Chloe Lanser, Diego Bekinschtein and Jeff Arnold, DARKON was engaged to deliver a lighting solution to support their masterplan – and a quantity of 265 x MINI SKIRT SUS linear pendants at fixed lengths of 2m & 2.8m were used in an imaginative design response. The set out of the light fittings is designed to allow the many classrooms to be joined or separated as dictated by activities being conducted at the prestigious educational institution.

The triangular form of the DARKON extrusion used, combined with its deeply recessed lens, softens the lighting design and it was noted that ⁠⁠”…the jury consider this project to be an exemplary precedent for regional architecture, through its rich storytelling and sensitive design focused on student scale… ⁠⁠An exceptional building in detail and resolution, the jury were most impressed by the crafting of different scales to achieve its architectural excellence.”