Rosewood Centre

Rosewood Centre Opening July 2020 Rosewood Opening I 1

Honor Non Honores

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We acknowledge the Dharug, Darkinjung and Wonnarua peoples who are the traditional custodians of the land on which Barker College, Darkinjung Barker and Ngarralingayil Barker stand. We pay respect to the Elders past, present and emerging of the Dharug, Darkinjung and Wonnarua nations and extend that respect to other Indigenous people within the Barker College community.

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From the Head of Barker College

When I first arrived at Barker College as the 9th Head in 2014, I received a visit from the President of the Barker Basketball Club, Mrs Sue Smedley, pointing out the need to provide better facilities for our indoor games.

So began the lengthy process of choosing the best site, creating a design vision, gathering the funding and developing a concept that might take the School into the future. Early concept designs identified a possible site on Clarke Road and Unwin Avenue, to the south of the School. However, the Barker Master Plan, drawn by Old Barker student and architect Paul Davies, in 2015, identified The Avenue Precinct as the best location.

The choice of Neeson, Murcutt and Neille as the Architect of The Rosewood Centre was an inspired one. The reputation of Rachel Neeson for brilliance in design that complements the landscape was brought to bear on the very special site chosen for our new Sports and Learning Precinct at Barker. Through the foresight of past generations of Barker College Council members, The Avenue, which once was a modest domestic access road, had become a new portal into the School - the epicentre of which had gradually moved east in the past decades. This building stands now as their lasting legacy.

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The Rosewood Centre has a magnificent location. It stands on an elevated position at the eastern most point of our beautiful campus, taking the space that once supported residential housing, Barker boarding and, more recently, maintenance facilities and the Barker College Cadet Unit. The site affords an exquisite outlook to the horizon south and the west beyond our cherished Rosewood Fields. The slope of the topography offers a rise and a fall that leads down to the Phipps/Taylor Fields and, ultimately, the Barker War Memorial Oval below.

Long before European settlement in this district, the land was populated by the distinctive Blue Gum High Forest that once dotted the sloping landscape between the Blue Mountains and the complex waterways of the Hawkesbury River and the sea beyond. Almost certainly, the Darug People once walked the ridgelines, caring for this country and nourishing its spirit. The spirit of the land remains, despite the felling of its trees and the withdrawal of its First People.

The Rosewood Centre brief sought to bring together all these elements: respect for the existing topography, honouring the spirit of the Dharug People and all the First Australians, the boundless interplay of the light and breezes that come from the easterly and northerly aspect of this part of Sydney, a sense of human scale on the northern frontage, restraint of dimensions within the building so that a child can feel inspired and at home and not overwhelmed by the vastness of the space, and a beautiful adjunct to activities on Rosewood Fields, from which the Centre derives its name.

The School needed classrooms, indoor courts and amenities, including carparking. We curbed the use of colour in the building, preferring to allow the colour and movement to be provided by the community to which the building served as a backdrop. Rather than creating a monument to ourselves or our sporting prowess, we sought the space to be a celebration of movement and learning: in the Dharug Language once spoken on this site “Wingaru Daranga” – A place of thinking and dancing. The spirit of First Australians is remembered in the landscape design of 360 Degrees, with The Avenue now hosting a songline of Barker beneath the parasol awning on the Rosewood Centre’s north-side. Spare a moment to walk its journey and peer through the building to the world beyond - if you will, beyond the Mint Gates.

The School Council committed to the construction of a space that will meet our needs for the coming decades but doing so with a sense of humility – Honor Non Honores. I honour their courage and support. Since the project began in 2016, the leadership of the Building Committee of the School Council, which has been Chaired by Mr Tony Gamson (OBA 79) for much of this time, was exceptional. The design brief was led with purpose by Ms Natalie Potent and her dedicated team of Barker PDHPE and Sports Staff. The Project skills of Ms Georgina Augustesen and constant support of the Senior Executive Team at Barker has been remarkable.

The magnificent Geuram Barker artwork, designed by Year 12 student, Ethan Landy-Ariel, and digitised by Glenn Quevedo, Barker’s Publications and Media Coordinator, is an inspiring welcome wall representing the coming together of cultures and communities. The assiduous and determined work of our Project Managers, EPM, and our Builders, PRIME Constructions, stands as a testament to the skilful hands that turn ideas into a tangible reality. The surpassingly beautiful design and indefatigable attention to detail from Rachel Neeson, Stephen Neille and Tamas Jones at Neeson, Murcutt and Neille Architects will remain a gift to generations who may never fully realise those to whom their thanks are due.

This book celebrates the achievement of the Barker College Rosewood Centre in our 130th year of existence. In its pages we recount the story of this land, of the buildings that once stood here and of the new space that invites us to think and dance together. We give thanks to the Lord for the unnumbered blessings lavished upon our School since our foundation in 1890. May we dedicate our future to the service of God and our community with joyous and thankful hearts.

“Hallelujah! Sing to the Lord a new song - His praise in the assembly of the godly…Let them praise His name with dancing, and make music to Him with tambourine and harp” Ps 149:1,3

Phillip Heath AM Head of Barker College

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A History of The Avenue

Like the rest of the Barker campus, The Avenue was part of the Blue Gum High Forest. Filled with towering eucalypt trees, native grasses, ferns and herbaceous plants, the flora and fauna were a rich resource to a number of neighbouring Indigenous tribes, for a period of up to 20,000 years. The arrival of European settlement to the area in the 1820s changed all this.

On 1 June 1841, land portion 117 in the Parish of South Colah, County of Cumberland, was granted to Frederick Unwin by the Crown. The grant was situated south of the present day Hornsby, west of Pearce’s Corner and Pennant Hills Road, and included what is now known as The Avenue. As a barrister and merchant, Unwin already owned a large amount of land in both Sydney and Melbourne, and consequently, the grant remained untouched. By 1849, ownership of the grant had transferred to Aaron Pearce, who had rented the land from Unwin for a number of years prior. Being in the timber trade, Pearce saw great value in the land and felled many of the ancient eucalypts.

Upon Pearce’s death, the 640 acres was shared between his son and son-in-law.

From this point on, as ownership was transferred to various branches of the family, the land was continually subdivided and sold.

The Avenue was created in 1906, when the north east corner of Peats Ferry Road (now the Pacific Highway) and Unwin Road was subdivided, and 24 residential blocks of land were put up for sale. By 1913, every block in The Avenue had been sold and although several blocks remained undeveloped for quite some time, life for residents was just like that of any other suburban street.

In the early 1940s, Headmaster Leslie argued that if Barker was to compete with neighbouring schools, then it needed a designated Junior School. In 1943, the School purchased Rosewood at 16 Unwin Road for £1,450. Consisting of a homestead and 1.1 acres of land, the property provided classrooms and a playground for Barker’s youngest students.

Once the existing Junior School opened in 1955, the homestead had a variety of uses, until the construction of the Rosewood Fields in 1969 led to its demolition.

In the late 1960s, the Barker College Council resolved to increase numbers from 600 to 1,000 students. Recognising that this increase in students would put pressure on current facilities, the School Council actively began to acquire properties in the neighbouring streets. These properties would not only accommodate the increasing student numbers of the day, but also provide resources for future generations of Barker students.

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The acquisition of properties in The Avenue was seen by Council as a logical first step towards expansion. Preliminary investigations and discussions commenced in 1972, with only 9 The Avenue having been purchased at this time. In 1981, the School purchased 1 to 7 The Avenue on the south side of the street, which was followed in 1982 by the purchase of 4 to 10 The Avenue. This included ‘The Arches’, a 33 bed nursing home. By 1983, the only property not owned by the School was 11 The Avenue. It’s owner, Mary Taperell, had lived there since she was a child.

Affectionately known by Barker students as the Goat Lady, Mary was one of the few suppliers of fresh goats’ milk on the north shore. As a lady who wished to maintain her quiet life, Barker students knew there would be consequences for retrieving balls that went over her fence or behaving in a way the caused unnecessary noise. Mary’s property was finally purchased in 1998. It was only in 2018 that the School purchased The Avenue from Hornsby Shire Council.

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The Avenue was always reserved for two large construction projects, one on either side of the street. An early 1980s master plan shows a new Senior School precinct on the northern side, with new boarding facilities and tennis courts on the southern side. In reality however, properties on the northern side were rented, whilst the need for temporary boarding accommodation resulted in senior boy boarders and boarding staff moving into 3 to 7 The Avenue in 1984. In 1989, properties on the northern side were demolished to make way for the Centenary Design Centre, with the southern side still designated as the site of a new boarding precinct.

By the time the senior boarders moved out of their temporary accommodation in 1998, the priorities of the master plan had changed, with the southern side being earmarked for a new Performing Arts Centre. The Kefford Building, with its dedicated performing arts spaces released the southern side of The Avenue for a substantial construction project in the future. The southern properties have therefore had several uses over the years depending on the ever-changing needs of the School.

The Maintenance Department was a longtime resident of 1 The Avenue, with other properties being used for staff housing, offices, storage, agricultural facilities, sporting facilities and the Plume Store. The transition to coeducation led Council to utilise these properties for the Rosewood Centre, and construction commenced in December 2018.

The foresight of the Barker College Council over 40 years ago to acquire neighbouring properties has allowed The Avenue and Rosewood precinct to be developed into learning spaces, meeting places and sports facilities suitable for the 21st century and beyond.

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From the Architects Neeson Murcutt + Neille The Rosewood Centre is a significant asset that brings clarity and order to the eastern part of the Barker College campus in line with the 2016 Masterplan, and allows the anticipated enrolment expansion as it moves to becoming fully coeducational.

Every learner, every experience, every day

It has been developed with an understanding of the powerful role the physical school environment plays as an educator – communicating Indigenous recognition, civic mindedness, sustainability, landscape awareness, and engagement with sport.

It reflects a commitment to and investment in design excellence.

Barker College: Mission

These words speak to ‘inclusion.’ They underpin a place that is about excellence, not elitism. And they call upon us, as architects, to design for everyone – the student who may eschew sport and the hero, the teacher and the parent, the first-time visitor and the daily occupant.

The Rosewood Centre is the eastern face of Barker College, with frontage to Unwin Road. The architecture peeks curiosity – the driver of learning. It gives a glimpse to activity inside, invites you inside. It speaks to the spirit of the School, projecting Barker College as a contemporary and empathetic place.

total floor area

3,434m2

Courts

This project is about the ‘celebration of sport for all’. Courts to the east, courts to the west, and Rosewood Field out in front – here, you are surrounded by sport.

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Length

139m

Classrooms

Width

50.4m

function Capacity

Sue Field Room

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Solar Panels

12

145 seated

Parking

504

153

electric charge stations

6

Structural

Data & Security

Concrete

17,860 m3

Reinforcement (Conventional – excluding post tensioning)

576.5 t

Electrical Large Submains

6,830 m

Small Power/Lighting Cables

53,100 m

Light Fittings

1,069

Sports Flooring

Cat 6A Outlets (approximately)

600

Strip timber flooring to basketball courts

Cat 6 Cable

47,200 m

Communication Racks

8

6 and 12 core Internal Fibre Optic cabling

3,000 m

Glazing

72 core external building tie Fibre optic

1,200 m

External & Internal Windows

22,178 m

1,883 m2

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Sports courts require even light across the entirety of their large playing surfaces. This necessitates both the roof and the walls to operate as natural light sources.

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This is a large building.

So, how do we touch the human spirit and humanise something so big? And how do we avoid the appearance of a giant industrial shed?

We work with orders of scale.

The smaller rooms (classes, staff, fitness) are collected alongside the big outdoor space (Rosewood Field), and the big ‘room’ (sports hall) is placed alongside the smaller outdoor space (The Avenue), introducing a juxtaposition of scales –big, small, big, small.

There are multiple reasons for this organisation.

It is fundamental to the structural logic.

The site has been excavated to accommodate three levels between the ridge of The Avenue and Rosewood Field.

Classroom, staff and fitness rooms fit within a 3-storey concrete framed bar that stretches along the edge of Rosewood Field. The wide span truss structure of the 5-court sports hall is stabilised between this ‘field building’ on the south and the excavated retaining line on the north.

It is fundamental to the fresh air logic and sustainability.

The field building is perforated by large balconies that open into breakout spaces on the court side. These balconies are essential to the natural cross ventilation strategy for the sports hall, working together with court level louvres, and supplemented by high level louvres to the entire perimeter crown. Every learning, staff and fitness space has an operable window giving choice to the community between fresh and conditioned air.

The field building is fully glazed to Rosewood Field, providing ample natural daylight to the three levels of spaces within it. South light is soft to the eye and minimises glare to screens in learning environments. Sports courts require even light across the entirety of their large playing surfaces. This necessitates both the roof and the walls to operate as natural light sources. The sports hall roof becomes a field of skylights. Its three external walls are glazed, with direct sunlight tempered by a parasol awning and translucent polycarbonate at the upper datum. Materials that allow light and transparency express the qualities of inclusion, inspiration and openness, that are inherent to the core values of Barker College.

The landscape at Barker College with its gardens, ‘forests’ and fields, is striking and unique. It is also an educator – Dharug country, a green lung, a rain soak, a refuge, a positive offset to the urban heat island effect.

We work with landscape.

The Rosewood Centre connects strongly to landscape and makes engaging outdoor ‘people places’ – sheltered balconies and bleachers overlooking sport on Rosewood Field on the south, and a broad pavement with brick yarn circles for gathering along the north.

The full northern frontage is protected by a pearlescent parasol awning, supplementing shade offered by trees - the shadow of their branches is visible through the canopy skin.

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The awning traces the topography in recognition of country, and animates the large building form, stretching widest at the main entry - gestural, welcoming, purposeful. The building’s edges are all about visual connection and engagement with the outdoors - inside and outside are inextricably linked.

The building levels connect with the campus topography – Level 1 with Rosewood Field, Level 2 with Kurrajong Walk, Level 3 with The Avenue ridge.

Matching these levels and aligning with established lines of campus movement will allow connectivity, access equity and wayfinding for the future.

The Rosewood Centre is designed for the collective – class groups, teams and spectators, and up to 3000 people gathering in assembly, arriving and departing. It is an easy building to navigate.

The layout is non-confrontational, ordered and safe. There is a high degree of visibility, aided by clear internal circulation and strategically located functions – reception cafe, court manager, staff areas. The main stair runs north-south. It is generous, top-lit and absolutely direct, connecting The Avenue entrance on Level 3, with the Rosewood Field entrance on Level 1. Secondary stairs run along the eastwest spine connecting to the western entry.

The lift is at the centre of this cruciform circulation structure, and provides access equity.

The Rosewood Centre is designed for the individual - equally respectful of both genders, equally respectful of Indigenous and non-Indigenous. There are comfortable margin spaces for refuge, red rubber balustrade rail to lean against whilst spectating, and comfortable surfaces to sit on – timber bleachers, timber change room seats and soft rubber courtside floors.

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The sports hall is deliberately visually neutral – the activity of its occupants within brings vibrancy and colour.

Compared to this visual neutrality, the rich warmth of the timber floor stands out, underscoring its place as the stage for sport. The eye is drawn to the landscape – to trees east and west, the green of Rosewood Field and the distant ridge. And the eye is drawn to the artwork Geuram Barker by Barker student Ethan Landy-Ariel.

Colour is so important to the ‘atmosphere’ of competition sport through the identity of teams. The Rosewood Centre is a homeground. Barker branding is thereby present, but subtle - it is the thin red line of the handrail on Level 3, the pinstripe of red and blue wall tiles in the changerooms.

Where the Sports Hall is neutral the Field Building is highly coloured. The class and staff area floors are a colour extension of the field itself, and its ceilings adopting tones of the Sydney Blue Gum, endemic to this country. The fitness rooms incorporate Barker blue and red. The Sue Field Room is lined in timber, golden, distinctive and special, in honour of its namesake.

The balcony and break-out spaces are fundamental to the organisation of the Sue Field Room. Essential to daylight and fresh air, they also give visual porosity, and are important in-between spaces that can support a richness of learning and social settings well into the future.

The acoustic signature of a room is a keenly felt spatial quality. The sports hall ceiling and walls work together to dampen the space acoustically for teaching, assemblies and audio, whilst maintaining the bright sound of spectators, that is so elemental to competition sport.

..the eye is drawn to the artwork Geuram Barker by Barker student Ethan Landy-Ariel.

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The Rosewood Centre is a building about movement. Buildings themselves might be static but light and shadow play together here to give a sense of lifeful-ness even when the building is empty. The rhythm of glazing and balconies across the long southern face to Rosewood Field hints at a Mexican wave, and guides the pattern of coloured classroom ceilings. The signage too, communicates a sense of movement – the colour change sign to The Avenue, the carpark entry artwork, and the shadow sign on Unwin Road.

Architecture can be transformative. We design buildings for the people and activities within them, but each is a piece of our city, our campus, shaping our public and shared campus spaces and making what we call ‘places’. When creating new works within existing places we consider both the context, and the effect of the individual work within that context. We call this authentic palimpsest and it defines how we work.

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The existing monuments form an ideal order among themselves, which is modified by the introduction of the new (the really new) work of art among them.

The existing order is complete before the new work arrives; for order to persist after the supervention of novelty, the ‘whole’ existing order must be, if ever so slightly, altered; and so the relations, proportions, values of each work of art toward the whole are readjusted; and this is conformity between old and new.

Whoever has approved this idea of order…. will not find it preposterous that the past should be altered by the present as much as the present is directed by the past.

In “Tradition And The Individual Talent” (1919) by T.S. Eliot

The rhythm of glazing and balconies across the long southern face to Rosewood Field hints at a Mexican wave, and guides the pattern of coloured classroom ceilings.

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Sustainability Initiatives Electric Car Charge Points Insulated Building Envelope Maximum use of Natural Light

Designed to minimise use of Lift Performance Glazing

Photovoltaics Panels External Sun Shading

A Cleaned Site

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Managed Artificial Lighting System

Mixed Mode Ventilation

Materials Selected for Healthy Interiors

Water Efficient Appliances

Rainwater used for Irrigation

Tree Planting

Durable – Built to Last

Recycling Bins

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Signage and Graphics The signage and graphics created for the Rosewood Centre were designed to be welcoming, legible and joyful to students and staff, as well as for visiting sports teams and families.

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The graphic language was developed to celebrate sport as an integral part of life at Barker and from an early comment of Phillip Heath’s “You don’t switch your mind off when you play sport – the mind is on the whole time”.

The design approach also connected to the architectural language developed by Neeson Murcutt + Neille, in particular the folding roof line that floated across the landscape providing a canvas for light and shadow to play across the building.

MAAT worked with the School and its Communications team to integrate signage and graphics into the new building, incorporating line work and repetition that reflects the movement and activity occurring in both learning and sporting endeavors. A combination of court and pitch markings, neural activity patterning, and the strength of the Barker colours, created a bespoke and confident visual language for the new building.

The large-scale WELCOME and EXIT graphics to the car park reflect this key entry to the School for many families, visitors and away teams. Running tracks on the ceiling confirm the primary vehicular circulation; and red dots and connecting lines of neural activity create a super graphic entry marker at the doors.

As pedestrians approach the entry along The Avenue, the play of light on the building is reinforced by the changing appearance of the ROSEWOOD CENTRE letters. Applied to the glass in dichroic film, the colours shift with the viewer’s movement, in a continually changing palette. Similarly, ROSEWOOD CENTRE fabricated letters float off the façade facing Unwin Road casting shadows across the day, a continual play on quiet/still and noise/movement.

Inside the building the ‘jumping’ super graphic level numbers and nonaligned directional panels are a play on movement & connection to the building’s function.

Large purpose designed pictograms provide a sense of joy to functional destinations, with Change Room and Level identification scaled for legibility during sports mode, for first time or infrequent users.

Court markings and neural activity patterning also create the line work for the film to the classroom glazing, minimising views back to the energy of the courts and enabling visually quieter zones for learning.

Signage and Graphics by MAAT

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Landscaping

The landscape design is inspired by the way the roof form recalls the organic nature of Aboriginal shelters.

As such, the landscape concept is an abstraction of the nature of the materials of Indigenous shelter, utility and artistic expression, particularly of The Sydney Blue Gum Forest, local sandstone and ridge line. This is overlaid with the use of brick as the defining material element, reflecting its distinctive use throughout the Barker campus. Brick is used to unite the building faรงade and the landscape in a contemporary expression of layers, folds and peels to create a singular and legible landscape that provides equally for movement, for gathering and learning, for observation and for contemplation.

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The planting scheme is generous and predominantly native, comprising species that have food, utility and medicinal use, with accent plantings of feature species to act as way finding devices for paths of movement, entries and exits and for connection to the wider campus. The canopy trees along the Northern Elevation of the site are designed to replace the canopy lost to the Southern Elevation. The planting gesture with brick edging is designed to harmonise the new building and landscape into its surroundings.

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Rosewood Centre Consultants Planning Mersonn

Fire Holmes Fire

Quantity Surveying MBM

Crime Risk NEAL Consulting Solutions

Heritage Paul Davies Pty Ltd

BCA Steve Watson and Partners

Structural SDA Structures

Geotechnical JK Geotechnics

Landscape 360 Degrees

Access Funktion

Arborist Arborsafe

Ceiling Colour Consultant Lymesmith

Traffic TEF Consulting

Certifier Viv Lilli

ESD/Mechanical ARUP

Project Manager EPM

Hydraulic/Fire/Acoustic/Electrical JHA

91 PaciďŹ c Highway Hornsby NSW 2077 Australia 28 I Rosewood Opening

t +61 2 8438 7999 f +61 2 8438 7609 w barker.college