Friends of St Peter’s Gilgering have engaged Curtin University’s School of Built Environment’s Masters of Architecture students to develop a Masterplan for St Peter’s Gilgering. They will be guided by lecturers Katherine Ashe and Simon Pendal. The students are going to spend the next 4 months developing whole of site Masterplans which will include; mapping the site as it exists now including the probable location of unmarked graves, plans to rebuild the old schoolhouse, ablution facilities, storage space, scope to inter ashes or erect memorial plaques and the possibility of the provision of power and water.
The students will be focusing on Architecture as more than just designing a building:
The objective of this speculative project is to examine how the understanding of place can act as a catalyst for strategic intervention. The Gilgering Church and former school site is significant culturally, historically and environmentally …. The project will attempt to unlock the latent potentials of this place through provision of new infrastructure.
Each student will be required to develop their own Masterplan including working drawings, building and planning permits. Their designs will need to meet the requirements of: Friends of St Peter’s, Gilgering, The National Trust Australia (WA) and the Shire of York’s building and planning rules.
The students will receive further input from; The National Trust Australia (WA) on heritage buildings generally, Ron Bodycoat, heritage architect who prepared the original Conservation Plan for St Peter’s in 2002, archaeologists on working in an historical site, landscape architect Pip Munckton and Curtin’s Department of Sport and Recreation on building cultural corridors to engage and activate spaces in a community. We will finish up with approximately 20 different designs to choose from. We are endeavouring to have two events during the design process for members of Friends’ of St Peter’s, Gilgering to view and comment on the students’ work. One will be mid-way through the semester and the other the final presentations. Details of these events are yet to be finalised, it is hoped to hold one in York and one in Perth.