St Mary’s College has built a new senior school facility among the heritage buildings within the campus on the western edge of Adelaide’s city centre. The West Terrace project was a $12 million redevelopment, and featured a full sized indoor gym, a study centre, and visual arts classrooms. The architecture is of international standard, offering first-class facilities and amenities for students.

Versalux partnered with WSP, Grieve Gillette Anderson, Sarah Constructions and CM to create a sustainable and technologically advanced lighting system for the newly built gymnasium, ensuring that a wide variety of sporting activities could be performed uninterrupted, producing uniformity of the required illumination, with a superbly lit, low glare environment. The new facility will look to significantly increase participation in physical activities for students competing in both intraschool and interschool sports events, with an interior punctuated by a mix of modern materials and featuring beige coloured timber walls and flooring set against high reflectance painted surfaces.

The versatile MAXI CAPRI is renowned for its superior light output balanced against an extremely high visual comfort factor. Combined with its high technical competence and durability, it easily met the key mandatory requirements for the various sporting activities expected of the multi-purpose gymnasium. The MAXI CAPRI’s have been suspended in a continuous pattern optimised to the gym’s layout, where the multi-element refractor lens optics and specialised multi-stage reflector combine with the high performance LED modules, specifically designed to deliver the excellent vertical illumination and maximum visual comfort demanded in fast moving ball sports.

The MAXI CAPRI 210W luminaires with a warm white 3000K colour temperature and high colour rendering translate favourably for gym users. The MAXI CAPRI luminaires perform in harmony with the abundant natural lighting of the facility, critical where players can be expected to spend extended periods of time for training sessions and games, ensuring an optimal low-glare atmosphere to minimise the likelihood of eye strain and skill errors. The MAXI CAPRI luminaires provide excellent visibility and an even distribution of illumination for all teams, team colours and ball movement.

The gym has quickly become the ideal environment where the powerful MAXI CAPRI lighting system allows players to thrive and improve. The excellent illumination delivers the best visual experience possible for coaching staff, spectators, and players, as well as improved skill development for all players during basketball and netball games.

Photo credit: Sam Noonan

The St Mary’s College, West Terrace Development has won the following awards:

1. 2019 AIA SA, Award for Educational Architecture
2. 2019 The City of Adelaide Prize – People’s Choice Award
3. 2019 LEA (SA/NT) Commendation for New Construction / New Individual Facility over $8 million