Italian town squares became Branch Studio Architects' point of reference for the design of this school administration office in Melbourne, which is almost entirely lined in cardboard tubes.
Caroline Chisholm College is located in Melbourne's Braybrook suburb and had previously played host to a "highly inefficient" administration office that had a rabbit-warren of dark workspaces.

The hub of the office is now a piazza-style room where staff can encounter and talk with students passing through, or hold large-scale meetings.
Some of the peripheral walls curve inwards to form seating nooks, complete with grey-leather banquettes.
At the room's centre is Branch Studio Architects' interpretation of a public monument ? a floor-to-ceiling cylindrical pod that's referred to as a "clock tower". Inside there is a small table with a recessed countertop, which has been made to resemble a clock face.

Glass-fronted arched doors lead off to a series of boardrooms, communal work areas and private offices for individual members of staff.
Dropped ceilings have been erected throughout to give spaces a more intimate feel, while sweeping and diagonal lines have also been marked into the floor to create "axial links" between the office's different rooms.
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