Hymba Yumba is an independent community school for prep students to Year 12.
The completed school is intended to cater for 300 students and the facilities will include administration space, classrooms, a library, tuckshop, science laboratory, commercial kitchen, art facilities and an elders’ room. The plan also makes provision for early childcare facilities.
A key design challenge for the project has been responding to the small and steeply sloping site – an irregularly shaped 5,000m2 parcel of land adjacent to Springfield Parkway. The project’s design development phase has been extended, as a range of challenges are negotiated – from stormwater and flooding constraints to funding and planning conditions.
The design process is new for the client, so Deicke Richards has provided essential advocacy and leadership. The practice has been extensively involved in critical site planning decisions, development of the project brief and in providing materials and information to support funding applications.
Construction of the project’s first stage, to accommodate 150 students, is expected to begin late in 2011. The school currently occupies temporary facilities in Springfield.
“From the beginning, this project has been about connectedness. There’s the obvious impetus to reconnect disengaged students with a supportive education environment and with each other. But there has also been a commitment for this school and its community to reflect connections to the landscape and to culture.”
-Eloise Atkinson, Project Director
