Location: Meadowbank, Sydney, Australia.

Architect: Woods Bagot.

With integrated but separate primary and high schools, Meadowbank Schools is a brand-new state institution serving 2,600 students from the ages of 5 to 18. The school is a component of the New South Wales Government’s urban schools programme, which provides inner-city settings with high-density multi-level structures. The site is west-facing, steeply sloping, and in front a goods train line, which the building addresses with local brickwork. The flood plain is where the free-play spaces are placed. Several of the current trees date back to Australia’s early days as a western colony, and they have all been preserved to strengthen ties to the natural world. The construction plan has been organised among these trees into two twin five-story bars that frame the central hill of libraries draped in cascading gardens.