As designers, MCR favour distinct identities for the three principal sites of the PEGS Keilor campus. For us, each should be clearly different, like three small and fiercely independent towns strung together by proximity, the pedestrian paths between and the overarching identity of PEGS.
Upon revisiting the current Middle Boys buildings, we were struck by the similarity between its site planning and the Roman Forum. This was a partially unfulfilled intent of the original design and was a thread that we could unravel and explore. Between the early flights of imagination and the complexity of the later years, lie the middle years of school. Here integrity and habit are vital and simple civic values are instilled: where things are a bit more black and white, a bit more grounded; where you give, and get respect.
And so the design emerged: simple, distinct, and rational. Importantly though it is not without joy. It is a place where rational necessity is carefully construed and optimized to amplify an echo of the Roman Forum: a place of civility, debate, exchange, and respect.
