Hymba Yumba Independent School’s Stage 3 Performance Hall and Arts Building provides specialist arts, dance, music, and teaching spaces alongside a multi-purpose performance hall designed to accommodate large group gatherings and sporting activities. Integrated with the existing stage 1 and 2 precincts, the building leverages shared amenities and vertical circulation systems, minimising its footprint on the already constrained site. The learning spaces and the hall have a significant visual connection to the surrounding bushland, allowing for connection to country.
The naturally ventilated performance hall turns its back on Springfield Parkway, with large operable doors that open generously out onto the surrounding bushland and Opossum creek. In doing so, it transforms into a flexible, veranda-like space that can adapt according to the school’s needs.
Designed to be a dynamic and creative environment for students, the building fosters both the acquisition of creative technological skills, and the opportunity to share knowledge and apply traditional cultural expression. It is simultaneously a place of learning and making, as well as exhibition and celebration. Purpose-built spaces such as a recording studio, multimedia labs, dance studio, elders’ room and gallery are set against the immersive context of the bushland beyond, grounding the experience in Country.
The under croft beneath the building further reflects this idea, providing a terraced, landscaped terrain for nature play, informal gathering, outdoor art making and performance. This space also allows for quick recovery from any potential flood event. The cascading ground plane reintegrates itself with the bushland understory, softening the threshold between the built form and natural environment.
Deicke Richards has been working with the Hymba Yumba since 2009, and this project is the third stage of the Master Plan that Deicke Richards developed with the school.
- Client
Hymba Yumba Independent School
- Year
2025
- Location
Springfield, Brisbane
- Photographer
Christopher Frederick Jones
