Designing Learning Experiences and Spaces

Iona Presentation College, Australia

Along with the school and their architectural partner, we helped to create a visionary masterplan for space design that reflects and supports the art of the possible for the next 20 years.

Having EIW Architects follow and contribute to the space planning journey at Iona College has not only nurtured different perspectives, but from the earliest stage has incorporated the school’s vision for learning in a solid understanding of what is needed from their space, allowing great teaching and learning to emerge even before concrete was poured and ribbons were cut.

Focussing on a range of learning contexts, and questioning how and where students experienced them, we worked with the school and EIW to look at music rooms and libraries, science labs and cafeterias, and classrooms across every discipline, exploring curriculum, space and teaching methodology through a new lens. School leaders, staff and students worked together to gather a range of data to inform their ideas, conducting interviews and encouraging each other to reach new levels of thinking through provocation and feedback. Prototyping and testing quickly followed, revealing what great teaching and learning could mean, and the spaces needed to achieve that.

Engaging both the school and EIW Architects in our Immersion, Synthesis, Ideation, Prototyping and Feedforward model made a notable difference to the insights and understanding that informed the architectural masterplan and will shape both the physical and teaching environments for the school for decades to come.

“NoTosh’s process gave us the confidence to try new things and push the boundaries.”
Philip Idle, EIW Architects