Rondo meets wall and ceiling design challenges at Melbourne school

Mar 09, 2023

Rondo

The approval of a $29 million deal to build a new high school campus in Seddon, Victoria, established the government's partnership with Hayball Architecture to design a learning precinct that will champion educational excellence and integrate learning at all stages.

Leading the way, Hayball has designed the first of several bespoke vertical schools in Victoria, which presented new challenges to produce a functional and welcoming educational environment, and is an excellent example of how Rondo can provide continuous design expertise to support and overcome design issues in construction as they arise.

Located in Melbourne's inner west, the three-level Footscray High School Pilgrim Campus will purposefully provide dynamic and flexible learning spaces that support the innovative STEAM curriculum, where a more collaborative, problem-solving, and creative approach to learning is applied.

The option to rearrange spaces within the building to create distinct areas tailored to various activities provides a valuable advantage in supporting the success of the STEAM educational approach and Rondo's role was important to meet these requirements.

In this ambitious project, Rondo played a vital role from the early stages, conducting independent meetings with structural engineers, WGA, providing design options for several applications including internal walls and openings, seismically rated ceilings, external walls, and soffits.

Once Q3 was assigned as the contractor, Rondo worked closely with them to ensure the Rondo design met all requirements and soon after, Rondo steel stud and track was nominated for internal partitions and infill in the external walls.

Throughout the project, alterations to the soffits and fascia were made, requiring several timely and compliant design updates. The Rondo design team altered the soffits to provide a suitable solution of bridging a component between the purlins to support the deflection head track for internal walls. The implementation of frequent inspections and over-the-phone services ensured close monitoring and support of the updated installation methods with Q3 Contractors.

Hayball Architects created a ceiling design that offered a sleek, architecturally featured finish, with Rondo KEY-LOCK concealed ceiling system nominated to complement the look.

Where possible, the Rondo Design Team designed a free and fixed perimeter ceiling solution; however, when the required seismic forces were too great for the capacity of the ceiling system, a seismic bracing solution was nominated. For Q3 Contractors, this was the first time using Rondo's seismically rated systems in this capacity, providing a valuable learning curve in adopting seismic practices.

The ceiling was not the only substructure that required seismic bracing. Walls that did not extend to the soffit above required bracing back to the soffit. The walls required a vertical deflection, which was achieved with a boxed stud bracing solution, using steel stud and track. The dropper studs were attached to the Rondo 562 universal bracket on each side of the dropper and a horizontal steel stud between the droppers to act as support for the low height walls.

The bracing system was expertly designed to transfer the load generated in a seismic event through the steel studs and into the soffit above.

With some of the services passing above the wall, there were some limitations and challenges to install the brackets for the bracing; however, Rondo assisted with a design solution that considered the ducting without interfering with the load transfer back to the soffit. These brackets are used to stiffen joints, including the connection between the bracing assembly, the soffit, and the wall.

Rondo is proud to be part of yet another project that will build on the richness and diversity of the community, with a long-term vision for world-class education and the ongoing integration of significant educational institutions in Melbourne's Inner-West.

Featured Rondo products

KEY-LOCK suspended ceiling system

Steel stud & track wall framing system

Project credits

Architect: Hayball

Builder: Hutchison Builders

Contractor: Q3 Contractors