Ngutu College

We are happy to share that Ngutu College received the Learning Environments Australasia, SA&NT award for it's category recently, as well the overall award for excellence in educational facility design.

The true soul of spaces are people.

Ngutu College operates with Aboriginal Cultures as its ‘soul’, young people as its ‘heart’ and the Arts as its ‘spine’.

The College tasked Matthews Architects to transform an 80-year-old highly institutional ex-government building to meet flexible and contemporary needs of a new pedagogy in education, as well as, to dismantle the institutionalisation of schooling, all within tight budgetary constraints.

The building was transformed as a home with soul for young people and children. The room layout and building circulation fosters community building and puts people at the heart.

This natural flow means people pass each other all the time. At Ngutu everyone seems to know each other, not just immediate classmates, and their allocated teacher. The younger and older children know each other naturally. More like siblings supporting the kinship system of Aboriginal cultures. The staff lounge and preparation spaces are intentionally designed to have the children’s access corridor passing through it, informing children and young people that staff are accessible to them.

Congratulations to Ngutu College on truly living reconciliation. It's not only closing the gap, it's creating a new future and perspective for all of us.