ARM inherited this student accommodation project partway through concept design, and the first thing we did was flip the building.

The existing design had the main dormitory wing facing due west – no protection, afternoon sun hitting every facade directly. ARM rotated the building so the dorms face east, catching morning light instead. The western side, now a corridor and service zone, is shielded by a deep roof that breaks down over a wide verandah. The big, cost-neutral roof provides shading that eliminates the need for mechanical sun control, and creates a covered outdoor space that works in every extreme the Riverina serves up: 40-degree summers, flood seasons, winters that drop below zero.

The building flip also revealed and solved a security problem. Where the original scheme would produce a blind spot invisible from the rest of the school, the flipped arrangement creates a backyard framed by staff apartments at one end with passive surveillance lines across the open space. ARM’s design thinking turned a good outcome into an exceptional one at no extra cost.

Essentially, Worley is a big house of family units for 86 young women. The building is organised into smaller communities, each with a dedicated, fully-equipped common room with its own character and its own dining space. The successful balance between shared life and private retreat – study area, own bed, own space – is designed in and comes from close collaboration with both female and male students, the school, contractors, consultants and SINSW.

The Worley Dormitory makes the case that regional students – and regional women in particular – deserve architecture that takes them seriously, and enhances their overall school experience.