Breathing new life - Clendon Centre

The redeveloped school facilities provide students and staff with 18 new classrooms, homerooms, office spaces, a lecture theatre, advanced art technology facilities and more. Additionally, there are three levels of above-ground teaching space, one underground and two levels of underground parking.

With more restoration works to the school’s mansion and chapel facade happening above ground, down below an underground linkway tunnel was created to connect the new Clendon Centre to the existing Mandeville Centre basement carpark.

After reaching completion in October 2021, the Loreto Mandeville Hall Toorak project won the 2022 Henry Bastow Award for Educational Architecture from the Australian Institute of Architects (Victorian) Awards. It was also shortlisted for the 2022 INDE Awards in the Learning Space category, an architectural and design award that attracts entries from 14 countries across the Indo-pacific region.

WGA was engaged by Architectus Australia to complete the civil and structural design of the school’s redevelopment. The overall structural design for the project was for a reinforced concrete building structure, including columns and floors and a structural steel roof. Civil design included stormwater, pump and detention tanks, basement connections between the new and existing underground car parks, landscaping comprising tiered seating, raised grass areas and pathways.

The school’s regular systems were only minimally interrupted by the project. WGA developed engineering solutions to minimise impacts during required tie-in works with surrounding structures and staggered class time plans were also designed for teachers and students.