Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects

City Beach Residential College

City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts

CITY BEACH RESIDENTIAL COLLEGE

Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects

ART INSTALLATIONS
Jon Tarry

INTERIOR
Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects

STRUCTURAL ENGINEER
Terpkos Engineering

LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTS
Capa- Carrier And Postmus Architects

DESIGN TEAM
Adrian Iredale, Finn Pedersen, Martyn Hook, Mary Mcaree, Fred Chan, Gian Tonossi, Daniel Martin, Catherine Dupuy, Leo Leong.

PHOTOGRAPHS
Peter Bennetts

AREA
1421 m²

YEAR
2019

LOCATION
City Beach, Australia

CATEGORIES
Higher Education

Text description provided by architect.

The City Beach Residential College accommodates up to 66 country students enrolled in Gifted and Talented Secondary Selective Programs in some of Perth’s best schools.

City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts
City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts

The new residential facilities provide after-hours teaching and tuition spaces combined with recreation, dining, gymnasium, administration, and conference spaces.

The site is steeply sloping and close to the beach with distant views to the city and immediately adjacent to Bold Park, the design capitalizes on these opportunities balancing city and beach views with calming views to the park.

City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts
City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts

The new teaching and recreation facilities embrace an existing mature Ficus tree that forms part of the public domain and street context and acts as a comforting and familiar figure for country borders.

The Ficus protects the building from the harsh west sun, conceals the building from the predominately small-scale residential street, and provides an instant mature garden for interior experiences.

City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts
City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts

The building stretches around the mature tree to form a sun-filled, north-facing courtyard, screened from the street and intense southwest winds, creating acoustic separation to adjacent residences.

This courtyard is the primary external recreation space and is boarded by the former administration building to the north. The landscape architects CAPA, worked closely with iph architects creating fluid, sculptured concrete block walls combined with native landscaping, partially screening the existing building while providing interactive seating and climbing elements.

City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts
City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts

The space is boarded to the east by a grove of eucalyptus trees and foregrounded by Jon Tarry’s spiraling and weightless blue sculpture.

The primary floor plan is formed by the desire to obtain passive surveillance from the reception desk to student spaces.

City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts
City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts

The site parameters of restricted area, mature tree, steeply sloping site, and existing administration building, when combined with this requirement, resulted in a dynamic pin-wheel plan arrangement.

This plan arrangement allows staff to maintain a watchful view while maintaining a respectful distance from teenage residents.

City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts
City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts

The open plan arrangement also allows students to passively observe others maintaining a vicarious social interaction while feeling safe.

It encourages informal gathering and communication while allowing for formal teaching and training arrangements. External materials reference the 1960’s modernist homes with robust and delicate blockwork detailing, filtering the sun, and creating intimacy to interior rooms.

City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts
City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts

Cantilevering blocks on the entrance wall act as an abstract measure of time engaging with the sun's movement. 

The site is within a fire-prone area and part of native title land. A Whadjuk cultural advisor was engaged to assess all found items for cultural value with such items cataloged and stored. The small and restricted site was future-proofed from potential adjacent development by isolating site services from the international school, extending site boundaries, and providing new access roads for the international school.

City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts


City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts
City Beach Residential College
© Peter Bennetts

City Beach Residential College
Plan - Site
City Beach Residential College
Plan - Site
City Beach Residential College
Plan
City Beach Residential College
Sections


City Beach Residential College
Elevations
City Beach Residential College
Elevations


City Beach Residential College
Details
City Beach Residential College
Sketch
City Beach Residential College
Sketch
City Beach Residential College
Sketch

Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects
T +61 8 93229750 F +61 8 93229752
Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects
suite 8/329-331 Murray St, Perth WA 6000, Australia