Campus Masterplan

July 2018

No school can afford to stand still in a world where education continues to rapidly evolve.

Westminster is no exception and in our relatively short history, we have achieved many amazing milestones as the School has advanced. The Murray Centre for Performing Arts, the Sports and Swimming Centre, the Sturt Grove Farm, Westventure, the Boarding Precinct and the Mathwin Centre are all fine examples of investments that support our mission to provide an exceptional education for all students at Westminster.

Westminster will continue to be dynamic and evolve to the needs of our students. There will be more milestones recorded when Westminster School celebrates 60 years of outstanding education in 2021.

With this occasion firmly in our sights, the School Council commissioned a master planning process of the School, incorporating a vision to consolidate our School as a learning environment at the forefront of world-best educational practice.

This new Campus Masterplan aligns with Westminster’s new strategic vision announced in 2018 to see us through to our diamond anniversary and beyond, and includes some of the most exciting and progressive advancements ever undertaken by the School. Within our masterplan, we will create a truly contemporary and creative learning environment for all students, Preschool to Year 12, whilst celebrating the natural attributes of the existing grounds.

Council and School Leadership have been working collaboratively with key academic and co-curricular staff, as well as leading educational consultants and architects. Through these extensive collaborations, our priorities have centred around new state-of-the-art facilities for Science, IT, Design, Technology, and Engineering, complemented by Mathematics, Arts, Humanities and attractive community spaces.

In February 1961 at the inaugural assembly, Westminster’s first Headmaster Douglas Forder famously declared - “Let the life of the School begin”.

We are always building on the great vision of our Founders and those who have served and supported Westminster. Through sound and diligent investment, the life of the School has flourished and will continue to do so.

We proudly present an overview of our Campus Masterplan that will drive the change, particularly for the next three years. What lies ahead is bold and ambitious, yet essential for the growth of the School and our students as they look to their futures in further education, employment and the community.

Phillip W Styles (’66) Chairman of Council

Our Vision

Simon Shepherd Principal

The Campus Masterplan – presented to the School community Friday 27 July 2018.

Strategic Plan 2018 – 2023

Values

Aspiration

Mission

Westm

inster, where you can achieve more than you thought

poss

ible.

To provide an except onal educat on for students,

Pres

choo

l to

Year

12.

Kind

Mindful Curious

Courageous

Inclusive

Resilient

Westminster School prides itself on an active and engaged community. Ensuring our students are cared for, have a sense of personal wellbeing and are nourished through academic and co-curricular choices, gives them the skills and confidence to achieve great things in the outside world.

Any dynamic organisation that succeeds in the 21st century does so through self-reflection and understanding their competitive advantage. The School constantly reflects on and adapts to how we prepare our students for the realities of a career beyond our School gates.

In late 2017, Westminster embarked on re-defining the School’s strategic direction, through extensive community consultation from students through to Old Scholars, parents and staff members. Our mission is affirmed as providing an exceptional education for students, Preschool to Year 12. Our aspiration is for our students to think of Westminster as a school where they can use their exceptional education to achieve more than they thought possible. Our students and Old Scholars have proven this to us time and time again by extending themselves far beyond their own expectations.

Our graduates achieve their individual potental and are well prepared for actve, engaged lives beyond the School gates.

Our School is renowned for its genuine and successful focus on wellbeing and breadth of opportunites.

Our community is actvely and meaningfully engaged, on and off campus.

Our learning and teaching is informed and contemporary, enhanced by innovatve industry engagement and outstanding grounds and facilites.

Our financial management sustains our School and enables us to be dynamic and responsive.

The Campus Masterplan needs to work hand in hand with the Strategic Plan to ensure that infrastructure supports the School’s strategic direction. The planned developments for the next three years have been aligned with our mission and aspiration, and will enhance the School values of being curious, courageous, inclusive, kind, mindful and resilient.

Detailed expansion of the Strategic Plan has produced the core strategic outcomes below. In every strategic step from mission to actions, the Campus Masterplan has been assessed to ensure it will fulfil the projected needs of the School.

STRATEGIC OUTCOMES:

“Westminster had a remarkable impact on my life. It taught me resilience, leadership, what I enjoy doing, friendship, loyalty, and it shaped me into the person I am today.”

SALLY POWELL (‘93) STATE OPERATIONS MANAGER – BUNNINGS

The Campus Masterplan looks towards shaping the future of the School and is a response to prepare us for significant changes in the way our students will be educated. Through this process, our aim is to create a unique place of learning that defines our vision and culture, and affirms the positon of the School as an educatonal leader in South Australia.

Campus Masterplan Process

Our design team at Brown Falconer and leading educational architectural practice Hayball have been working collaboratively with the School Council, Principal and key Westminster stakeholder groups to address:

Why we need to change – clarifying the core values, vision, educational priorities, research drivers and aspirations.

How we would deliver on this purpose – establishing guiding principles, educational opportunities and operational models with reference to shared project vision.

What we would need to build to support our teaching and learning needs – forming preferred concepts, refining scope of work and budget, and prioritise development stages.

The Strategic Plan (2018 to 2023) has served as a major reference to determine responses around these key considerations, and led to forming the Guiding Principles to address:

• precinct definition

• cross-campus connections

• improved access to, and interface with, whole of School shared facilities

• maintaining qualities of open space and connection to the natural environment. “As a foundation student, I have been

proudly involved with Westminster for over 50 years. Our development has been most impressive, with a campus continually changing to provide students with outstanding facilities.”

STEPHEN MATHWIN (‘65) COMPANY DIRECTOR LIFE MEMBER OF SCHOOL COUNCIL

Design principles will be investigated during the detailed planning phases of the new buildings and landscape areas to minimise the ecological footprint, limit the use of natural resources, teach about sustainability principles and enhance health and wellbeing.

The Guiding Principles also include a series of architectural and landscape design principles, detailed on the following pages, to set parameters around the Campus Masterplan.

Through this detailed process, a linking trail across the Westminster grounds has been formed to recommend positions for these priority projects:

• An ‘Inquiry and Innovation Hub’ to consolidate Design, Engineering and Food Technology, Fashion and Textiles, Art and Science

• A ‘Library, Food and Performing Arts Hub’ that, along with the Michael Murray Centre for Performing Arts, brings together our whole community through Dining, Catering, Cafe, Library, Music, Dance and Drama

• Relocation of the Year 12 Centre and Pastoral Care

• Development of a ‘Westminster Square’ concept as part of the linking trail and as a central landscaped place for the School and community to come together.

Further information about these key developments can be found on the following pages.

A Project is formed

VISION, VALUES & CULTURE• Preserve the qualities

of a warm, welcoming and relationship focused learning community

• Honour the rich history of Westminster School as an open campus environment within a highly valued natural setting and expansive green space

• Support active and meaningful community involvement through improved access to and interface with shared community facilities.

CAMPUS CONNECTIONS• Connect all precincts

across the campus, from the ELC to Boarding

• Celebrate and enrich access to whole-of-campus shared spaces

• Enhance connections between Preparatory and Senior Schools

• Strengthen links between the Boarding Precinct, shared community spaces and dining

• Improve the interface with Sturt Grove Farm to celebrate this unique educational offering and support expanded cross-curriculum opportunities.

HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT• Retain and enhance the

value of open spaces by limiting significant increases in building footprints

• Achieve effectiveness in space utilisation and strengthen the interrelationship of curriculum areas through complementary co-location, adjacencies and resource sharing

• Enhance health, wellbeing, engagement and learning outcomes through sustainable design.

ALL SPACES ARE LEARNING SPACES• Consider all indoor

and outdoor spaces as opportunities to inspire learning, enquiry and engagement

• Support the delivery of informed, contemporary teaching and learning through a diversity of learning settings

• Design of learning spaces to support a breadth of opportunities and a broad range of endeavours: academic, sporting, artistic, creative

• Accommodate changes in pedagogy through agile and adaptable spaces.

ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN PRINCIPLES LANDSCAPE DESIGN PRINCIPLESCONNECTIONS

• Create a ‘green link’ which connects the School campus east/west and north/south

• Maintain strong physical and visual links to surrounding buildings and facilities

• Integrate the access into existing buildings with a new wayfinding strategy

• Prioritise pedestrian movements and Westminster as a walkable campus.

• Create an inspiring range of natural spaces for all users to encourage external learning

• Deliver a series of elements and complementary spaces so the site offers a range of nature-based play opportunities

• Look forward in terms of technology and create spaces that will allow for outdoor classrooms and learning hubs

• Create outdoor spaces that are focused on the relevant activity for either the Senior or Preparatory School

LOCAL & UNIQUE• Weave a local narrative

through the green space (and wider park network) to provide a journey of discovery and learning for children and adults alike

• Create a strong material and vegetation palette that represents the different precincts throughout the School

• Embrace Water Sensitive Urban Design principles and look to use these as learning tools/places of education.

FLEXIBLE SPACES• Create a multiuse and

multifunctional campus, which includes a range of opportunities from socialising, learning and quiet contemplation

• Develop a school environment that can accommodate both large and small scale gatherings, during both school hours and after

• Provide a diversity of gathering and moving experiences to maintain interest for all users over Years R to 12.

SAFETY & PROTECTION• Ensure comfort from

wind, rain or sun

• Provide facilities that are interactive with a safe level of risk yet allow for the boundaries of ‘safe play’ to be responsibly challenged

• Consider CPTED principles to ‘design out’ crime

• Ensure the outdoor spaces are ‘for everyone’ (ie students/parents/ sporting groups/local community) and embrace Westminster’s strong sense of community

• Create spaces where children feel welcome and they can ‘sit and wait’ after hours

• Consider maintenance and the School’s ongoing safety and security.

• Be a landscape space which considers: inquiry-based learning, transdisciplinary approach to curriculum, research driven design outcomes, visibility of learning and flow from indoor to outdoor learning

• Reflects the people and the rich layers of history of Westminster School.

PATHWAYS TO LEARNING

With the preceding guidelines shaping the Campus Masterplan and by using a collaborative ‘designing from the inside out’ approach, it is The Trail concept that has emerged to form the heart of the campus design. The Trail provides the unifying principle to virtually connect the whole campus, from North to South, Preparatory School to Boarding. It defines a clear, pedestrian friendly and focused circulation zone to interface with shared community facilities such as the Sir Shirley Jeffries Memorial Chapel, Michael Murray Centre for Performing Arts, and Sports and Swimming Centre.

The TrailCentral to The Trail in the Senior School precinct is Westminster Square, which will become a welcoming place for the School and community to meet and socialise around food, event and performance spaces, while providing access to key learning areas.

It is Westminster Square that will anchor existing facilities and the new learning hubs to be constructed over the next three years in readiness for the School’s 60th anniversary.

The School Council and School Leadership agreed that our priority is to consolidate the School into a learning environment at the forefront of world-best educational practice, in readiness for the School’s 60th Anniversary in 2021.

At $35 million, this is the largest investment into infrastructure ever undertaken by the School and it will be realised through an approved program of responsible borrowing, funding from the Westminster Foundation and the generosity of our community.

The School Council also resolved that this carefully managed investment would be staged across the next three years to reduce the impact on the daily life of the School.

The Senior School precinct will be transformed during this time with new learning hubs that bring science and art together while interfacing with a designed community space for the whole School to enjoy.

The staged development will be complemented by our annually budgeted facility upgrades and the establishment of required temporary learning locations. These will ensure each and every student continues to be provided with an exceptional educational experience.

Throughout the improvements being undertaken, the School’s history, reflected through existing building names and memorials, will be addressed with understanding and respect.

Commencing with the official announcement of this project in July 2018, there will be regular updates through the School’s main channels of communication to our students and School community, advising of project development and progress.

INQUIRY AND INNOVATION HUB This new hub will commence early in 2019 with a planned 2020 completion, and will consolidate Science, IT, Design, Engineering, Food Technology, including a VET kitchen, Fashion and Textiles in a new three level building. Replacing the western wing of the 400 Block, the new hub will front Alison Avenue in line with the existing Learning Resource Centre, and be sited between the 200 Block and sport courts with walkway links to a repurposed 300 Block as a contemporary Art Centre.

LIBRARY, FOOD & PERFORMING ARTS HUB Commencing early in 2020 with a planned 2021 completion, this new three level hub will bring together Dining, Catering, Café, Library, Music, Dance and Drama. It will extend from the southern end of the Michael Murray Centre for the Performing Arts to replace the existing Music Centre and the ‘old changerooms’ block.

SENIOR HUB This hub incorporates further refurbishment in 2021 with a planned same year completion, and will provide general learning areas within ultramodern 100 and 200 Blocks accommodation. It will also include the Year 12 Centre and Pastoral Care relocated to refurbished areas within the existing Learning Resource Centre.

WESTMINSTER SQUARE This new open space locks in the heart of The Trail and becomes the landscaped centre of the Senior School precinct, providing a connected and active place for the School and community to come together.

Campus Masterplan 2018 to 2021

IS IT STEAM OR STEM?In recent years, there has been wide-spread discussion around the importance of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics) and/or STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, Mathematics). This has led to educational facilities being opened and labelled as such to meet an expectation that schools should have a centralised facility for these subjects. The essential core skills in these subjects, such as problem solving, collaboration, communication, critical and

creative thinking, are, in fact, embedded in every subject. Our design philosophy is therefore not to have all of these subjects in one-such labelled building. Instead, we consider our new Inquiry and Innovation Hub and Senior Hub, which includes our new state-of-the-art Mathematics wing, linked together will create the ideal environment for our important STEAM learning ethos.

INQUIRY AND INNOVATION HUB FROM ALISON AVENUE

LIBRARY, FOOD AND PERFORMING ARTS HUB INSIDE

LIBRARY, FOOD AND PERFORMING ARTS HUB LOOKING WEST FROM ‘WESTMINSTER SQUARE’

The Campus Masterplan possibilities extend well beyond the developments to be completed in acknowledgment of the School’s 60th Anniversary in 2021.

Of course, not everything identified in our Campus Masterplan can be done at once nor will everything be actioned in the way we might look at it now. However, it does provide a framework in which Westminster’s needs can be assessed over time to make sure they remain consistent with the School’s strategic direction.

The priority developments in the Senior School precinct commit us through to 2021. As a matter of course, during this time additional upgrading of School infrastructure will be done within the parameters of the annual property plan and budget.

In terms of capital investment, what development may happen beyond 2021 will be appropriately addressed in accordance with the School’s governance, position and needs.

The following list provides an overview of the additional areas of change that have not been fully evaluated or costed for funding purposes but make up the longer term vision of the Campus Masterplan:

Beyond 2021 • Repurposing of the

Health Centre as an improved Junior Staff Centre

• Relocation of Health Centre to the existing Preparatory School staffroom, adjacent to the Preparatory School Office

• Preparatory School staff centre is established in the Nelson Wing’s first floor learning areas

• Conversion of the existing Dining Hall (and catering kitchen) to a multi-purpose space

• Conversion of the old Early Learning Centre to OSHC (Out of School Hours Care)

• New carparking at the western end of the Junior Primary precinct and a ‘kiss and drop’ turning circle adjacent to the new OSHC

• Expansion and improvement of Years 3 to 6 learning areas to create flexible and connected spaces with access to outdoor learning

• Conversion of the Principal’s residence ‘Highmoor’ to ground floor function spaces with School Archives on the upper level

• New sport pavilion on the Main Oval

• Extension of The Trail to incorporate the Sturt Grove Farm

• Upgrade to the Sports and Swimming Centre entrance

• Off-street traffic management and relocated carparking

• Sir Shirley Jeffries Memorial Chapel ceremonial lawn upgrade for improved pedestrian access.

“Westminster fostered a culture of excellence, innovation and aspiration, and helped springboard me into a truly meaningful career.”

HANNAH WANDEL (‘06) FOUNDER/CEO COUNTRY TO CANBERRA

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