Mccauley Place Learning Centre

The new McCauley Place Learning Precinct at Monte Sant’ Angelo Mercy College in North Sydney is a striking and dramatic building. Its strong modernist forms mark a point of departure and a new focus for the school’s learning activities. The building houses 18 new ‘classrooms’ and a range of varied and interesting learning environments is a realisation of a modern inclusive educational approach based on open-ness and co-operation between teacher and student. The new Learning Centre is one of the first built expressions of a strong mainstream movement to change the pedagogical paradigm of Australian secondary schools. The building has attracted interest and praise in the educational community. It is being used as a model for new teaching environments. The brief called for open-ness, transparency and connection: the new building delivers these outcomes with its transparent and moveable walls and the bridge connections between rooms.