Bates Smart ™

Music School, Victoria University of Technology
Sunbury, Victoria

The Music School at the Sunbury Campus of VUT is part of an ongoing development of the historic building complex, originally built as an Industrial School and Lunatic Asylum Complex, located on the crest of Jackson’s Hill, on the outskirts of Melbourne.

This project demonstrates Bates Smart’s understanding of the design and planning issues of adaptive re-use for tertiary education of a heritage listed building. The refurbishment works have been carried out in accordance with a Conservation Management Plan prepared for the whole site by Richard Aitken/ Nigel Lewis and Heritage Victoria.

The Music School has been accommodated in the restored and refurbished Building 22, formerly the Female Refractory Ward constructed in 1891-94. It includes lecture rooms,tutorial rooms, music practice rooms, staff offices and a central performance hall, with a surround sound control room and a new foyer area.

New interventions, including the glazed courtyard veranda and performance hall foyer, are separately expressed from the historic building in a modern idiom using steel, glass and timber to complement the original scale and heritage detail.