The Kimberley College Art Studios and Library have been designed with the same intent as the award-winning Kimberley College Flexible Learning Area, to create adaptable indoor learning spaces with flexible outdoor spaces that create engagement with the surrounding environment.

The library includes a tiered reading nook, shelving space for books and a range of flexible teaching spaces.

The library includes a tiered reading nook, shelving space for books and a range of flexible teaching spaces.

A 100 seat auditorium is also included in the Art & Library precinct that can extend to provide flexibility in use and seating for extra teaching space and school events.

The art building includes flexible indoor and outdoor teaching spaces, wet and dry areas, a computer lab for computer-aided design, storage spaces and a kiln covered in burnt timber cladding.

Connecting the library and art precinct is the ‘chill spot’, a fun area that gives art students a blank canvas each year to populate and paint as a tradition of the art school.

Recycled hardwood was used for bench seats, and an ephemeral pond has been set up outside the large feature window of the library to educate students on what happens to water after it rains.

With sustainability playing a significant role in the design an oversized wire trellis on the north and northeastern Library façade provides a focal point and vertical green alternative to the existing Eucalypt trees on the site.

The rear of the library is moated by a large planted dry creek bed, which captures and filters overland flow and roof water runoff. An ephemeral pond also provides a point of interest to the outdoor classroom space, which fills the void between the Art Studios and the Library building.

Oversized bench seats made from reclaimed site timbers sit around the mulch and native planting areas to provide flexible learning areas.

A large turf area unfolds under the shade of existing Eucalypt trees, providing students and staff with lush green mounds to lie, sit and gather on.

These un-programmed outdoor spaces join seamlessly to the Art Studios and Library through an articulated pavement edge that surrounds the building.