Australia’s Wilson Architects win major international award
Australian architecture firm, Wilson Architects with Architects North have scooped one of the world‘s most prestigious education architecture awards, the Council of Educational Facility Planners International (CEFPI) New Construction Major Facility award.
The award for the James Cook University (JCU) Education Central project was announced over the weekend as part of the 2014 CEFPI Annual Conference and Expo in Portland, Oregon. The CEFPI jury said Education Central embraces a sustainable approach to facility design and provides students with a 21st Century learning facility. The jury congratulated the architects for recognising ―the critical importance of changing the way teachers are trained, and bringing the profession into a 21st Century context with all that entails.‖
Wilson Architects Managing Director and lead architect, Hamilton Wilson, said winning the award is a significant achievement for the firm. ―We‘re honoured to win this prestigious award, which is a reflection of the importance of student-centred design,‖ he said. The multi-million dollar Education Central ―is the new front door to the university‖ said Wilson. ―We took the opportunity to create an environment that better reflects JCU‘s tropical identity, and builds a strong learning community through a combination of social and active learning spaces that keep students‘ needs at the heart of the campus.‖
Research reveals overwhelmingly positive staff and student responses to the new spaces: ―I just want to go to uni just to be in the building!‖ said one student.
Prof. Nola Alloway, JCU, Dean, College of Arts, Society and Education, said —
"Education Central has exceeded our expectations in creating a ‗sticky campus‘. The inspiration deserves to go viral."
As well as being education specialists, Wilson Architects are well recognised for producing some of the best science-based research facilities and public buildings in Australia. They have recently won an international competition to design a new city hall facility for the Miri City Council in Sarawak, Malaysia.
This year Wilson Architects, Australia‘s oldest continuous family architecture firm, celebrates 130 years of practice.
CEFPI 2014 Award Winner; Category 2: New Construction Major Facility
JCU Education Central is intended to improve student services and to incorporate contemporary methods of learning and teaching. The facility includes large scale active learning spaces that support technology enabled active learning. (TEAL) Learning spaces are spacious, well-appointed and flexible.
The overarching strategy was to locate teacher training to the 'front and centre' of campus and Education Central is well connected to other services by covered linkages. In a campus as large and diverse as JCU it was important to ensure that legibility of travel was a key design element. The project started with comprehensive research and visitations to other campuses and collaboration with the JCU community. This was followed by robust briefing workshops resulting in a briefing template that served the final design process well.
Education central embraces a sustainable approach to facility design and provides students with a 21st Century learning facility. The jury was unanimous in selecting this project as the winner of the CEFPI Award in Category 2 for New Major Facilities. Full credit goes to all those persons involved in the planning, design and delivery processes. The judges applaud the recognition by the proponents of this project of the critical importance of changing the way teachers are trained and bring the profession into a 21st Century context and all that entails.
