Modern Reid building by Colin Hassell becomes the core of new Adelaide city high school on Frome Road

An artist's impression of the new city Botanic High School incorporating the Colin Hassell-designed Reid Building on Frome Road, Adelaide.

Adelaide Oval remaker Cox Architecture led design of the $85m Botanic High School on Frome Road, Adelaide, around the core of a building by Adelaide’s first modernist architectural firm Hassell, McConnell and Partners.

Led by modernist disciple Colin Hassell, the firm, formed after World War II, designed the Reid building for the South Australian Institute of Technology (now the University of South Australia) on Frome Road.

Now Hassell Studio, the firm continues to shape Adelaide with projects such as the Zoo entrance and giant panda forest, Adelaide Airport's T1 and Adelaide Oval's western stand.

Colin Hassell's Reid building was transformed into the Botanic High School's learning hub, central to the new school’s focus on health and sciences.

Cox Architecture partnered with DesignInc, AECOM and KBR on the concept for the school of about 1,000 students and expected to open in 2019.

The architects have been commissioned to design a modern, world-class school set in the heart of Adelaide. The brief requires the architects to create an integrated learning precinct fostering student learning for future success.

The city high school project was an opportunity for the Cox team to work with government to create an innovative 21st Century learning environment, providing a new model for state education in South Australia.

The new school has the potential to shape the design of similar inner-city projects nationally and internationally. It was designed to fully engage with its Frome Road location, next to universities, the North Terrace cultural precinct, Adelaide parklands, zoo and Botanic Gardens.