Grimshaw and BVN design 14-story public school in Australia

Architecture firms Grimshaw and BVN designed the first high-rise public school in the Australian state of New South Wales.

The proposal will combine Arthur Phillip High School (APHS) and Parramatta Public School (PPS), two schools in Parramatta, a suburb of Sydney, into a 14-story building that can accommodate 2,000 high schoolers and 1,000 primary school students, according to ArchDaily.

The concept is based around the Schools-within-Schools (SWIS) concept, which which puts a focus on smaller, more personalized units across multiple grades. The school is made up of “home bases,” consisting of students of varying ages. The home bases will hold 280 students in the primary school and 330 in secondary.

“The school buildings act as the social infrastructure for the transformation of individuals and their communities through learning, inclusivity, and outreach, with wellbeing and playfulness arising out of the integration of the physical and the environmental,” Grimshaw Partner Andrew Cortese said in a statement.

The secondary school will have mezzanines, outdoor learning terraces, and science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics facilities. The primary school will have outdoor learning and play space.

To create a sense of community, the bases will have open spaces and comfortable furniture.