VISION Issue 35 | Page 38

38 Have you tried to future-proof this project? Some of the environmentally sustainable drivers we've built into this go beyond how it functions. We have thought beyond those five to ten years when the demands of the centre will change. Adjustments will need to be made. Critical to that is disassembly. We've considered areas like the kindergarten. In ten years, the demand for a kindergarten here will be so much less. Those areas are designed to be disassembled, with bolt fixings and no welding or visible fixings on the timber or metal cladding. At any point that side of the building can be disassembled and those products renewed and used elsewhere. How successful is the process of collaboration without becoming bogged down in a committee? Inviting too many people to that process can be challenging, and really, it's about listening, which takes a great deal of time and patience. There’s a need to be quite clear and firm. We had a very clear vision for this building and allowed for certain aspects of it to have very clear and direct input from other parties. In that, you enable this idea of ownership and authorship, and achieving that balance is challenging, but when it's realized, it's highly rewarding. One of the things glazing does, certainly in the kindergarten, is to give them a very direct connection to their outdoor spaces. Often kindergarten spaces can be quite insular and probably not as outward looking as they could be. JEFF GABRIEL, ARCHITECT