The Bialik Library is an important learning and social hub for the school. Ron’s brief for the library was to create a contemporary learning environment that integrates the online and physical library services, as a response to the boundary between online and physical becoming increasingly blurred.
The library has quiet study spaces as well as collaborative learning spaces and a wireless network and power points in the outside tables, making the courtyard an extension of the library. Ron appointed landscape gardener, Clint Leaver of Leaver Landscapes, to work on the Bialik Library Courtyard. Clint found that Ron “always supported new design concepts and ensured that my visions met the schools expectations.”
The Bialik Library features a story-telling room to encourage literacy and reading among younger students, a craft area that encourages hands on learning, a class room with a smart board and coloured glass boards so that students and teachers can write on the walls, and an area where groups of students can connect laptops to large TV screens in booths to work collaboratively. The building has a dedicated quiet study space for Year 12 student and a café with newspapers and magazines for informal learning.
The building has had a very positive impact on the school with overall use of the library increasing dramatically as a learning and social space.