Winner of the Future Project of the Year award at the World Architecture Festival, the now complete South Melbourne Primary School is one of the first vertical state schools in Australia.

The innovative design of South Melbourne Primary School by Hayball and Simpson Kotzman resulted in a six storey school for over 500 students, an early learning centre, maternal and child health centre, multi-purpose community rooms, indoor and outdoor sports courts.

With no formal classrooms, creating collaborative and dynamic areas that easily transition from learning to break out spaces. To achieve this, Hayball and Simpson Kotzman created a flowing, vertical piazza in the centre of the building that moves you through a shared space on each of the floors.

The trick was to find a lighting solution that was versatile enough to serve in all the different spaces of South Melbourne Primary School – which is exactly what mLight’s Queen of task lighting, the Kleo, was born to do.

Suspended over the piazza as it curls around the space, our anodised Kleo LED’s entice you to climb and explore the floors above. As the ceiling drops in height, the Kleo has been recessed so the luminaires maintain an uniform light throughout the space.

The shared learning spaces towards the outer edges of the building are designed to allow for flexibility of use. Lengths of the Kleo’s 95mm high profile has been surface mounted to the ceiling, complementing the square shape windows and bringing diversity to the space. Meandering down to the indoor sports facilities, long lengths of the Kleo have been suspended with maintained emergency over the basketball court.

The team at mLight are proud to have provided a versatile lighting solution to illuminate the children and the community throughout South Melbourne Primary School, thanks to Hayball and Simpson Kotzman.