Darlington Public School by FJC Studio in Sydney, Australia – All photos are by ©Brett Boardman.

Architecture. Australian practice FJC Studio has transformed and redesigned the Darlington Public School on the outskirts of Sydney. With 25% of the students from Indigenous backgrounds, one of the project’s main goals was to create a culturally sensitive and inclusive learning environment that is connected to the surrounding neighbourhood.

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The new community school combines an angular brick campus building featuring a distinctive “sawtooth” roof with landscaped outdoor spaces, including a large basketball court and a community garden. Softly curved perforated metal screens surround a series of open-air terraces, allowing daylight to filter in while protecting students’ privacy.

FCJ Studio developed the new Darlington Public School in collaboration with the local community, and particularly the school’s established Aboriginal art group. The redesign conserves and displays aboriginal artworks to preserve stories of the country for future generations. Indigenous art murals painted on the walls of the original school building were photographed and kept for reference to be repainted on the walls of the new school.

Landscaping has been carefully considered and will be integrated into the next stage of the development. In particular, selected indigenous plants thrive in the community garden. Here, students can learn how plants are used in indigenous cooking and culture.

The project also seamlessly connects to its surroundings. “It was important that the publicly accessible functions – the community hall, the COLA and the library- were located so that they could become an integrated part of the surrounding urban landscape. The scale of the new hall responds to the scale of the adjacent church, and the library sitting within the landscape provides a softer, more organic connection to the community.”

Darlington Public School has been declared the 2024 World Building of the Year Award by the World Architecture Festival. FCJ Studio previously won the prestigious accolade in 2013, making it the first practice in WAF’s history to win the award twice.

“It’s very humbling given the modest scale of the building — Says Alessandro Rossi, associate at FJC Studio. – It’s a little school project, so to have won against all the other big projects at WAF is a testament to the client and the community engagement that helped drive the design process. The real winners are the children who will spend time in the building — a place of enrichment for many years to come.”

All photos of the Darlington Public School by FJC Studio in Sydney, Australia, are by ©Brett Boardman, courtesy of the World Architecture Festival.

• RELATED STORIES: Discover more Australian architecture and design on Archipanic.

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Darlington Public School by fjcstudio in Sydney, Australia – Photo by ©Brett Boardman.