Building with a ‘Plus Ultra’ attitude

During Term breaks at St Peters, it’s not uncommon to see people busily working around campus to keep the buildings and grounds maintained. This year, however, the level of work going on has stepped up a notch. Both our Works Department and exterior companies have adopted a ‘Plus Ultra’ attitude to their Term break tasks—they’ve been pulling out all the stops to make way for incoming innovation at St Peters Indooroopilly.

So, what’s coming?

In the June 2020 edition of Plus Ultra, we covered some of the latest campus upgrades at Indooroopilly. If you missed it, the article ‘Making way for Innovation’ focused on the demolition of B Block (the building that once stood between the Senior School's Langer Library and Luther House). This time around, Luther House is set to join its former neighbour, but why? 

Both B Block and Luther House have served the College well over the years—they’ve housed classrooms, Boarding devotions and social activities, administrative offices, eLearning teams and IT Services. Following its construction in 1947, Luther House even hosted Old Scholar weddings and, in 2019, the Renewal of Vows by beloved St Peters couple, Prof Bill (AM) and Margaret Curnow (Neumann, 1960). So, with so much history, why the demolition?

Location, location, location!

The buildings occupy land central to the campus heart. Flanking one side of the Chapel Forecourt, the site of B Block and Luther House is needed to make way for innovation; the ‘Centre for Learning and Innovation’ in fact. This Centre has been proposed to ensure that St Peters students have the best start possible in our technology-driven world. Innovation is now integral to learning. The new, four story ‘Centre for Learning and Innovation’ will boast a range of flexible teaching and learning spaces and all aspects are being designed to meet the needs of every Year Level within the P-12 student span.

The Demolition Process

While, on paper, the demolition of a building may seem like a straight forward task, there’s a little more to it than just knocking down some walls. Because Luther House has, most recently, been the site of the Senior School Reception and our IT Services, all of the teams, equipment and infrastructure involved need to be rehoused before the walls can come down. This is an enormous task but, currently, the move is being made! Following this Term break, the Senior School Reception team will join the Chaplains and the Counselling team on the Ground floors of Thiele House. IT will call the First floor home.

From there, we’ll begin to say goodbye to Luther House. While these goodbyes will mostly be on an individual level (COVID-19 put a dampener on our official Decommissioning Service), the St Peters Old Scholars Association (SPOSA) have invited Old Scholars to share their memories of Luther House on their Facebook page. To reminisce while you await construction updates over the next few months, please visit: facebook.com/sposa45/.