ARM has delivered contemporary environments for learning, performing and working at this Melbourne independent school.
St Leonard’s College has 1600 students from Early Learning to Year 12.
Our first completed work there is an interior design project. We have fitted out a new junior library, an underused courtyard that has been converted into a STEM lab, and two learning spaces for Year 2.
We also established a new main reception point at the South Road entrance and new offices for junior school and administration staff within an existing building.
The new junior library joins the Year 2 classrooms and the main corridor, so students wander through and can read and borrow whenever they choose.
It has a teaching amphitheatre that fits a whole class, small tables with surfaces you can write on, and a variety of inviting places to sit and read.
There are bench seats, booths, and upholstered nooks in exciting shapes cut out of the bookshelves.
Young children tend to be attracted to warm colours, but too much colour can be overstimulating. Therefore, all the spaces have mainly timber or neutral finishes with some colourful furniture and joinery.
We found a children’s puzzle, Grimm’s Spiel und Holtz Design’s Stacking Flower, and used its colour scheme throughout the new spaces.
(Right: Stacking Flower by Grimm’s Spiel und Holtz Design)
The library has bench seats, booths, and upholstered nooks in exciting shapes cut out of the bookshelves.
St Leonard’s has converted an underused courtyard into a sunny junior school STEM room with a glazed ceiling. Our interior concept has a grass-green character floor and spots of primary colour.
“The final verdict, delivered by our students, was summed up by the one word heard repeatedly on the opening day of these new spaces: ‘Wow!’”
—St Leonard’s College