2009 : Building the Education Revolution

Should schools be built to stimulate the economy?

Having spent the majority of our working lives master planning and designing Victorian Government State Schools, for Minx it was difficult to witness the BER being rolled out.

Schools desperate for funding, earmarked for capital works were told that their projects had been shelved and template designs were delivered thoughout the state with little regard to the Master Plans that they had in place.

Minx limited their involvement to projects that could not fit the mold.

Neerim South Primary School was one such project.

The fabulous community at Neerim South had a big wish list and a tight budget. Working with the school community, we restored the heritage school house and designed a new Learning Centre and Resource Hub for the school. The steeply sloping site was landscaped with a series of terraces were designed to provide new outdoor learning, whole school gathering, passive and active playspace.

Across the state, government schools are now operating from the BER template facilities. While we believe that the design of these templates was based on sound principles, a template can rarely adequately respond to varying site conditions, allow for orientation to support environmentally sustainable design or most importantly meet the particular needs of an individual community of learners.

Each school is different and we believe that each school will required a tailored response. Minx are proud to say that in 15 years of school design, every project that we have delivered has been in response to the needs of that school community, and not one is the same as the other.