Fortitude Valley SC

The Fortitude Valley State Secondary College is the first new inner-city state high school in Brisbane to be built in over 50 years. Vertical schools, while familiar in other parts of the world, are still reasonably novel in Australia, particularly in the government school system. The college is located on the grounds of the former Fortitude Valley State School, which was closed in 2013 along with several others across the state as part of a Liberal government scheme to sell off public assets. Until its closure, it was the longest-surviving state primary school in operation in Brisbane, with original buildings designed by Benjamin Backhouse and Richard Suter in 1867 and 1874. Although the school had subsequently moved (in 1950, into a three-storey building on the site of the new college), the nineteenth-century buildings – now heritage-protected – are extant on the adjacent site and remain a significant influence on the area’s scale and streetscape. Designed by COX, the new school is a flagship, future-focused educational facility that embraces the site’s rich educational history. It sympathetically integrates with its inner-urban surroundings and sets a new benchmark for contemporary, urban schools in Queensland. I was tasked with capturing the exterior and interior of the school refurbishment (old school) and new vertical school (tower) and landscaping and hall. Photography: Real Visuals