Completed at the end of 2012, Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School (PEGS) Senior is the second building designed by McBride Charles Ryan for the school, following a boys junior school shaped like the silhouette of three overlapping houses.

For PEGS Senior, the architects devised a figure-of-eight plan with a sequence of classrooms around the edges, a library at the centre and two courtyards within the voids. This layout allows every route to lead back to the library and also creates outdoor spaces that are protected from strong winds.

"The project is based on an infinity symbol, a shape that allows the facility to be structured around two protected courtyards," explain the architects. "The building is an embodiment of the journey of education and the crossover between disciplines."

Swathes of colour streak across the walls, floors and ceilings of rooms in both wings as part of a colour strategy to help students to differentiate between each department.

Glazed ceramic tiles in bands of grey and black give the school its shimmering outer skin, while the same shades are repeated across the cladding panels of the courtyard elevations. Some details are picked out in timber, including the underside of arches and louvred window screens.

The two separate courtyards contain a mixture of grassy mounds, hard landscaping, rock gardens, trees and curvy benches.

"This variety of spaces and volumes [is] not dissimilar to a walled citadel with its gardens and ceremonial arches," add the architects.

McBride Charles Ryan completed its first building for PEGS in 2011. Other projects by the firm include Klein Bottle House, a residence with origami-like facets and folds.

See more schools on Dezeen, including a stark concrete secondary school in Portugal and a gabled extension to a boarding school in England.

Photography is by John Gollings, apart from where otherwise indicated.

Here's some more information from McBride Charles Ryan:

The Infinity Centre, Keilor East

The Infinity Centre, the new campus for Penleigh and Essendon Grammar School senior students, is derived from the initial idea that the library, a learning hub, is central to the school. We also wanted a building that offered protection from a windswept site and signified the merging of two schools.

Radiating out from the library, along the length of the form, are specialist precincts and a variety of learning spaces. Each wing then returns to link up, forming cloisters and the resulting plan of an infinity symbol. Being structured around two protected courtyards has enhanced the learning space's access to light, ventilation and view.

Each wing has its own qualities, different from each other and yet seamlessly connected to the next. In this way the building acts as an embodiment of the journey of education, with less distinction of any prescribed boundaries between disciplines. The colour strategy reinforces the identity of the academic disciplines, universally enhanced by the richness of natural materials, such as locally recycled timber. Planning allows the building's circulation to constantly return to the library at its heart, and in this way is physically and experientially in parallel with the educational ethos of the school.

This variety of spaces and volumes, not dissimilar to a walled citadel with its gardens and ceremonial arches, are encased within a unifying skin. The outer wall of the building is clad with glazed bricks, a material that offers protection, beauty, gravitas, and imbues the impressive form with a sense of permanence. The banded brickwork pattern aids in reading the shape of the building, adding complexity and delight as the sun catches the silver through the day.

Project team: Rob McBride, Debbie Ryan, Andrew Hayne, Drew Williamson, Qianyi Lim, Peter Ryan, Stephan Bekhor, Anthony Parker, Amelia Borg, Natasha Maben, Benedikt Josef, Alan Ting, Luke Waldron, Jacqui Robbins, Daniel Griffin, Seung Hyuk Choi, Angela Woda
Area: 8000 m2

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Senior by McBride Charles Ryan appeared first on Dezeen.

The walls of this house in Australia by architects McBride Charles Ryan have origami-like facets and folds.

Located on the south coast, the holiday home is named after the Klein Bottle, which is the mathematical term for a surface with an indefinable left, right, top or bottom.

Rooms angle around a central courtyard and step upwards to negotiate the inclining landscape.

On the facade, outer surfaces are painted black while recesses are finished in different shades of white and pale grey.

The residence was named best house at the 2011 2010 World Architecture Festival Awards. This year's awards took place in Barcelona back in November – read about the winners here and here.

The firm also recently completed a shimmering silver school with the silhouette of three houses - follow this link to see it.

Photography is by John Gollings.

Here's some more information about the project from McBride Charles Ryan:

Klein Bottle House

The Klein bottle is a descriptive model of a surface developed by topological mathematicians. Klein bottle, mobius strips, boy surfaces, unique surfaces that while they may be distorted remain topologically the same. I.e. a donut will remain topologically a donut if you twist and distort it, it will only change topologically if it is cut.

The surfaces that mathematicians have developed hold intrigue for architects as they hold a promise of new spatial relationships and configurations. Technology (CAD) has played an important part in all this, it is now more possible to efficiently describe more complex shapes and spaces and communicate these to the build. Previously the more orthogonal means of communication – plans, sections and elevations naturally encourage buildings which are more easily described in these terms, i.e. boxes.

This holiday house is situated on the Mornington Peninsula 1.5 hrs drive from Melbourne. It is located within the tee–tree on the sand dunes, a short distance from the wild 16th beach. From the outset MCR wanted a building that nestled within the tree line. That talked about journey and the playfulness of holiday time. What began as a spiral or shell like building developed into a more complex spiral, the Klein bottle. MCR were keen to be topologically true to the Klein bottle but it had to function as a home. We thought an origami version of the bottle would be achievable and hold some ironic fascination. (The resulting FC version also has a comforting relationship to the tradition of the Aussie cement sheet beach house).

The building (we think) is also within that tradition of the use of an experimental geometry that could be adapted to more suitably meet contemporary needs, and desires. In that sense it is within the heroic tradition of invigorating the very nature of the home, most notable of this tradition would be the great experimental heroic houses by Melbourne architects in the 50’s (McIntyre and Boyd in particular).
The house revolves around a central courtyard, a grand regal stair connecting all the levels. There is a sense of both being near and far to all occupants.

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Its endless, curling shell-like quality particularly in the tee tree brings about a comforting togetherness.

Colour Usage

Central to the expression of the origami ‘Klein Bottle’ is the use of colour facets (subtle as they are) - in Antique white and Pearl Ash. These subtle variants emphasize the facets and hence the origami like quality of the house.

The black perimeter to the house – (other than where the panoramic windows encapsulate the internal and external vista), is deliberate and important. The black walls highlight and accentuate the beautiful wild natural surroundings. The black internally has the effect of framing a view of nature, giving one the feeling that from inside the house has landed within a natural wonderland. We did not want any distraction from this, and the black paint aids the power of the ti tree surroundings. It is the ideal weekend getaway for the inhabitants who can immerse themselves in nature in stark contrast to their busy city lives.

Floor Area: 258m2 approx
Principal Architects: Rob McBride, Debbie-Lyn Ryan Project team: Drew Williamson, Fang Cheah Clients/Builders: Donna & Mark Howlett

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This shimmering silhouette in the shape of three overlapping houses is in fact a junior school for boys in a Melbourne suburb.

The two-storey school building is faced in glossy black tiles and was designed by Australian architects McBride Charles Ryan.

Inside the extruded silhouette the school provides six classrooms, breakout spaces, a meeting room and a staff room.

Classrooms on the first floor have curved ceilings that wrap into the pitched roofs above, while walls in ground floor classrooms have rounded edges.

A long timber bench lines the corridor that links ground floor rooms.

Similar buildings from the Dezeen archive include a hotel that looks like a pile of houses and a furniture showroom that looks like stacked barns.

Photography is by John Gollings.

Here are some more details from the architects:

Penleigh and Essendon Grammar
School – Junior Boys Building

Brief + Design:
Penleigh and Essendon Junior Boys School began in an Italianate mansion on windy hill, opposite the Essendon Footy Club. This building is exceptional in a residential area where Federation housing dominates.

Slowly the school has accumulated much of the property in the block bounded by Nicholson, Raleigh, Napier & Fletcher Streets. Many of the ‘houses’ are now occupied by the school. This new project, a two storey year 5 & 6 block with 3 classrooms above and below, is an important addition to the school and public interface to Nicholson Street.

We wanted this building to acknowledge and exploit its unusual urban condition. All wanted this building to be a unique acknowledgment of an important threshold stage in the boy’s school life. All wanted more than just good accommodation, and we wanted a building of the imagination.

Click above for larger image

This proposal takes just the silhouette of a Federation Home, it is up-scaled, extruded and sliced. The front of the building might be described perhaps as a haunted house, the centre (the extrusion) is vaguely a Shinto Shrine, the rear (which interfaces with the schools ovals), if you squint - The Big Top.

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The planning is arranged so as to provide northern courtyards to the ground floor classrooms, upstairs the corridor is switched to reduce overlooking to the adjacent neighbour. The ground floor Grade 5 classrooms have rich deep colours and an earthy ambience. The first floor is ethereal. With more than a nod to Utzons Bagsvaerd Church the complex silhouette is smoothed to a cloudlike shape. The extruded chimney a source of light and a means of naturally ventilating the classroom space.

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Principal Architects: Rob McBride, Debbie-Lyn Ryan
Project team: Benedikt Josef, Amelia Borg, Natasha Maben.

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by McBride Charles Ryan appeared first on Dezeen.