Deception Bay
Flexible Learning Centre

Edmund Rice Education Australia’s Flexible Learning Centre Network caters for high school students who are marginalised, disadvantaged and have been excluded from most other schooling systems. We worked with the network to design and deliver Deception Bay Flexible Learning Centre, a secondary school that would support the needs of 75 students through functional, flexible teaching spaces with a non-institutional aesthetic.

Designed to be small in scale and to fit comfortably within the Deception Bay streetscape, the campus boasts enough aesthetic vigour to engage with the imaginations of young people, without being confronting.

The series of buildings were arranged around the perimeter of the site to form a central grassed courtyard. This scheme made the most of the limited site and introduced a high-quality green space for wider community use.

Buildings were broken into a series of smaller elements to reduce their scale and increase their level of interaction with the surrounding landscape. Simple materials were chosen for their durable characteristics which resulted in cost-effective construction and reduced maintenance. Vibrant colours were introduced to lend each building an individual character and create a fresh, creative learning campus without the institutionalised feel of a traditional school environment.