Hedland Senior High School, Stages 1, 2, 3 and Trade Training Centre

In 2009 JCY was commissioned to undertake a masterplan for Hedland Senior High School in order to demonstrate the opportunities and needs for new buildings as well as the refurbishment and reuse of existing facilities. The outcome was the identification of numerous new buildings, including an administration block, a café, various GLA blocks, a Metal Work Trade Training Centre, the refurbishment of Hardie House and extensive building and landscaping improvements.

A significant principle of the masterplan relates to re-orientating the school’s entrance from the ‘back-door’ to a primary location on Hamilton Road. This reorientation gave the school a recognizable and visible public presence as well as opening up the possibility of building new general learning areas and associated buildings on vacant parts of the site.

The works undertaken have created a new identity to the school’s frontage aesthetic, focussing on inspiration drawn from the colours and natural beauty of the Pilbara region. Influences have been drawn from local industry and in this context the palette for all the project’s elements make dramatic use of silvers, greys, bright pinks, rich rusts, ochres and oranges. These are juxtaposed against charcoals and the Pindan earth coloured walls, and together play on shade and scale. The buildings themselves are bold, invoking the sharp angles and depths of riverine gorges. Primary precast concrete walls are earth coloured and have bold patterns derived from the shapes of mining equipment. These patterns are also perforated into the metal screens that surround various parts of each building.

The screens, building forms, landscape and upgrading of buildings such as the Hardie House have given the school a new lease on life. They have also given the students, staff and school community a new vitality based on creativity, as well as a fresh new learning environment to be proud of.