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A
cquired in 1924 to become a Catholic Girls
School, numerous school buildings have
threatened to overwhelm Charles Webb’s
resplendent 1869 design. Where these assorted
suitors failed, Architectus finally delivers the modern
partner Webb’s historic work deserves.
The Mandeville Centre bristles with artful
intelligence. It honours not only the site and context,
but history of the library. There is an inherent
flexibility and adaptability with a pinwheel effect of
rooms and galleries radiating from the central
volume. Sited just south of the original mansion and
church hall, the new building provides library,
classrooms, a theatre, administration across its three
light-filled levels. Clarity of sight and ideas, hallmark
the design partially sunken to reduce bulk.
Its tightly pared steel frame, expansive windows-aswalls and deft interior layering are a highly inviting
yet visually restrained ensemble, thus sparing the
historic component the shock of the new.
Transparency is layered as a series of related
volumes rather than corrals, or vague, fashionable
open-plan. Viridian SuperClear™ is a visual key not
merely to the school’s Arcadian grounds, but on
the east elevation, as a bonus ‘extension’ pergola.