Danebank Anglican School For Girls, Carole Tisdell Learning Centre

Rohrig completed a challenging construction to realise a new five-story multidisciplinary facility at Danebank Anglican School for Girls in Hurstville, New South Wales, offering a world-class facility for generations to come.

This prestigious Anglican school blends modern facilities with traditional values, offering an inspiring learning environment for the next generation of female leaders. The Carole Tisdell Learning Centre is a cutting-edge multidisciplinary facility that will facilitate the preparation of students for the rapidly changing world.

Danebank’s new educational facility accommodates a new reception area, administration offices, a junior and senior library, new art and music rooms, new teacher and student amenities, 2 levels of classrooms for a multitude of subject learning which specifically also includes for computer/IT and multi-languages learning. At the heart of the facility on level 2 is a multifunctional Community & Staff Centre with adaptable meeting rooms, printing facilities, staff amenities, lounging, kitchen and dining facilities most of which also link to a partially covered external break-away deck area. Abundance in natural light throughout all the levels as well as an adapted design for conditioned air and natural ventilation ensures a safe and comfortable environment.

The architect for the project was GW Architects with project management from EPM Projects.

The interior of the facility is rooted in the school’s foundation in Christian values and aligned pathways to empower girls through fun and engaging learning, caring and life skills. Subtle, but fun color palettes, ceiling designs, bespoke carpets, fabrics and furniture all contribute to a comfortable and creative environment.

“We are very proud of the highly successful outcome of this project which afforded us the opportunity to closely collaborate with a client that, amidst the challenges faced, remained steadfast in their vision to promote the creation of suitable, progressive environments to facilitate the growth of the current and future generations for both staff and students,” said GW Architects Associate, Driekus Vorster.

The biggest challenge we faced was to construct this building amidst a live school environment that is part of a large existing school campus. An existing building located between 2 active school buildings had to be demolished to make way for the new building. We also had to excavate to create basement parking before we could get out of the ground. Works also included the establishment of a temporary canteen elsewhere on site to make way for a new canteen.

“A project of this size requires safety-first planning, which the Rohrig team is known and respected for,” said Rohrig Construction Manager, Dane Malone. “Whether it’s a fit-out or large-scale multi-story build like this one, we are experienced working in active school environments managing challenging situations like access, pickup and drop-off, and of course safety.”

The existing as well as the new building is situated close to and parallel to low-voltage power lines, which meant we had to carefully monitor the demolition and construction of the new building along specialised pathways. This became a very thorough operation once the luffing crane was on site and in addition, we had to modify the crane to reduce its overall height in compliance to avoid the overhead flight path.

“The safety requirements for this project were quite unique, but the team was able to establish proactive solutions from the get-go,” said Mr Malone.

During the construction of the new facility, Rohrig in collaboration with GW Architects, was also part of the realisation of a new Student Wellbeing Centre and a new Reception Area for the Senior School by refurbishing existing areas in other school buildings on the Danebank campus.

Rohrig is a proud participant in construction for the New South Wales and Queensland education sector. We have been constructing educational facilities that have stood the test of time and successfully fostered the growth of the next generation.