In December 2019 DesignInc Senior Designer Tim Garry – who worked on the Lindfield Learning Village Stage 1 design and is currently working on designing the remainder of the village – was invited to the final presentation of architecture models made by Design and Technology students at the campus. Tim was honoured to attend, and impressed with the high level of engagement and the quality of the work coming from these bright young learners.

The student brief was to design a sustainable house with renewable technologies to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels. Their solutions feature sustainable initiatives such as green roofs and walls, integration of recycled materials, water harvesting and solar panels. Environmental performance is enhanced by passive planning such as cross ventilation and north-facing orientation with shading devices to the west.

Tim was very impressed with high level of the students’ presentation skills, design literacy, intellectual exploration, research abilities and practical competency. He says ‘to engage and share ideas with the next generation of architects and engineers is as important for the designers of today as it is for the designers of the future’.

Lindfield Learning Village is a new K-12 education facility based on Sydney’s north shore underpinned by a project-based learning approach where students are encouraged to take an active role in their learning. Stage 1 opened in January 2019 with an intake of 320 students. When fully realised, six “Schools within a School” each with 330 students will comprise the education village accommodating 2000 pupils and up to 200 educators. The high quality of student work along with their ability to justify critical thinking is testament to the success of the education model.

DesignInc worked on Lindfield Learning Village as architects in association with Lacoste+Stevenson and BMC2.

Sustainable futures - Lindfield Learning Village student models