The Rockingham Heath Trade Training Centre (HTTC) is located on the edge of the “Brick- Brutalism” of the 1980’s Rockingham Senior High School (RSHS) campus. The project provides a base for the delivery of health care related vocational training in age care, nursing and similar health care related activities through efficient, high quality and simulated training spaces. Formally the building takes cues from the built languages that surround it, tweaking what is familiar to create a locally informed project. It plays with bricks in a delightful way and explores a layering and convergence of the steel roofs of the school, which top the two story Brutalist red brickwork, contrasting with the 1960-80 residential polychromatic brick houses on Farris Street. The site allows for a separate address from the main campus, allowing the scale of the school to be lowered to respond to the neighbouring single story houses. The plan is ordered around a central spine which is open ended and bisected by a series of lateral corridors that provide access to service spaces and views to the landscape outside the building. This provides relief and orientation for the students and staff. In section, the roof is opened along the circulation spine to admit north light and provide natural ventilation though a clerestory. This “sensible sustainability” modelled both shading and sun penetration, as well as predictive airflow using local wind and temperature data. The exterior of the building further expresses the spine, each split pavilion is clad in brick; red bricks to the school and a mixture of white and grey bricks to the northern street. The east and west ends of the spine are screeded with wall of hit-and-miss bricks while the north façade is textured with a saw-tooth array of bricks that express the seasons and time of the day in animated shadows. The project responds to the windy site of “hurricane alley” with a secured screened courtyard for outdoor activities and casual use, while the clearstory provides winter light and summer ventilation to the facility. The training is provided during the day by the staff of RSSH and after hours by external service providers - currently Health Training Australia. The Project Control Group included representatives from the school and training providers allowing for a negotiation between these groups as to the suitability of the design for secondary school students and mature age students. The programme of the building consists of spaces that match the Australasian Health Facility Guidelines, and include a Ward station, a 4 bed ward, patient ensuites, a simulated aged care suite, a treatment room, laundry and cleaners rooms, a seminar room, offices and a courtyard. Heath training rooms are to the south- opposite the ward station, with the multi-purpose training room, kitchen and courtyard to the north. Landscaping is designed around local coastal species and makes ground-moves that soften the rectangular forms of the building and provide focus points for internal views.

Sustainability This project achieved an “in principal” 4 Star Greenstar rating utilising the old Greenstar Education Tool. Project members had to report to key criteria within the rating system and a dummy report was submitted to the Department of Finance-BMW for review and comment. Practically the design team utilised local Bureau of Meteorology data to analysis microclimate and collaborated with the consultant team and school representatives to locate spaces in response to this data. 3D modelling was utilised to model sun penetration into the spaces. The clerestory window system has fixed shades and 4 motorised awning to allow for venting, mechanical systems include reed switches and run-down timers, lighting is low energy LEDs, water heating is via a heat pump with continuous flow pump system and all fittings are low water use type. Walls and roofs are fully insulated and high quality seals are used on all openings.