Gungahlin Community Council is participating in a Design Working Group for the high school section of the Harrison School, with the group's first meeting held on 19 November.

Some key design principles are to continue a developing "main street" line through the primary school on through the middle (years 6 to 8) and senior (years 9 and 10) schools, providing a central connection, but also a feeling of progression through the schools with age. The buildings are to maximise passive solar design by addressing the north, while capturing summer breezes from the east and blocking winter winds from the southwest.

The corner to Nullarbor Ave and Wimmera St will be more substantially developed to present a landmark frontage to a precinct of Harrison that will be of quite dense development, with four to six storey buildings adjacent fronting Flemington Road.

The architects May and Russell presented three options, with option 3 (pictured) seeming more preferred by those present. This plan incorporates 2-storey buildings around the south-west of the site - the senior school - including a significant area for performing arts, with two lifts required. A gym would be centrally locating to service the entire school, and there would be four tennis courts, two netball and two basketball. Significant mature trees on site are to be preserved.

Observations I made include:

• Setdown and carpark entrances along Nullarbor Ave should be combined to give the carpark one-way flow-through access, and be positioned to align with existing conflict points such as Pinnacles St where possible.
• The facade of the performing arts building should be articulated to present a positive face to this key intersection instead of a high blank wall.
• The design providing discrete central open areas for each school is good, but large expanses of hot bitumen (as the primary school has) should be avoided.
• Provision of areas for demountable buildings (as with the primary school) is disappointing, as once built, demountables are very seldom - well - demounted!
• Provision of four tennis courts is supported - GCC has been advised that this is the minimum to make a viable after hours court hire business, and would therefore ensure the wider community gets good access to the courts out of school hours without this being an administrative burden on the school. Likewise the location of the courts close to the playing fields now under construction would aid access to the courts without compromising school after hours security.
• The gym should be designed so as to minimise tunnelling of the back entrance into the primary school, Likewise the likely high walls and the service area of the gym should be designed so as to minimise visual impact for walkers along the heritage-listed Well Station Track.
• If some tweaking of the layout could preserve the high-value tree designated T1, this should be pursued as this would provide significant shade in summer and habitat value.