Creating Inspiring Learning Environments & Experiences

Australia's foremost education design specialists

A team of highly experienced education designers, Steve Collis and Sophie Fenton have combined expertise in strategy, design and construction.

From strategy or design only to design & build, if you are looking for an experienced partner in innovative classroom design or school building design, you're in the right place.

Be it in the construction of physical spaces, designing professional learning and curriculum adaptation or innovative pedagogy, solving the technology piece or designing a strategy to help you realise the educational goals for your learning community, we can provide inspiring solutions for your learning spaces and experiences.

We have offices in Sydney, Melbourne, and Brisbane, and work on school and higher education projects Australia-wide.

Learner-Centred Design

When we design in education, we design from a place of empathy and combine the needs of people, the possibilities of technology and the educational goals of the school or university in a human-centred design. Our concept of learner-centred includes everyone: leadership, teachers, professional staff and students. We design learning experiences for the professional development of leaders, teaching and non-teaching staff. We design educational environments and experiences that foster learning for students.

We are researchers and practitioners in futures of learning design. The goalposts for successful spaces are shifting as the world is changing, and so must the classrooms that support contemporary learners. We know that at the heart of any 21st century learning space is clearly articulated pedagogy. Without this, the space will fail. 

If you are currently establishing a pedagogy like Project-based Learning, or wish to catalyse flexible & collaborative learning spaces, we're uniquely placed to provide support. Our consultants are experienced school teachers and school leaders and are experts in project management, design and architecture.

Your Goal, Our Mission

We find that each school or university we work with has their own special DNA that can be outworked in the spaces they create and inhabit. Often there are one or more lenses that the organisation is using to articulate what a great experience in a great environment really looks like in practice. Our role is to understand your aspiration and provide just the right skills and support to bring it to life.

Your immediate challenge might be pretty simple - your numbers are growing or your current spaces are aging, and you need to quickly and efficiently scope a solution or update your Masterplan. Or you may have some special interests whose time has come to be realised through the building of a STEAM or STEM space or Makerspace.

We have extensive experience across a range of pedagogical approaches and assessment techniques, and can design both physical spaces and educational practices to support your school or university’ educational objectives. Whatever your current goal, we'll make it our mission to get you there.

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Our Team
  • Robert Frost once said, "How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?".

    Perhaps this is the most poignant way to introduce the level of experience that resides in the Education transformation team at Amicus. They have been there and they certainly have done it, but like all good educators, what always occurs to them is that the paradigm of learning is, and always will, be an infinite journey of discovery.

    The irony of the concept of experience is that it is beautifully vivid and somewhat essential for progress, but also a perpetual dream that we can never quite wake up to.
  • Steve Collis
    Education guru, award-winning teacher and Director of Innovation at the Sydney Centre for Innovation In Learning, Steve Collis joined Amicus in 2016 to lead its Strategy team across all sectors.

    Steve left the silo of education to take on a dream role at Amicus, providing human-centred research and visioning to underpin the creation of all new environments.

    His unstoppable obsession remains unchanged: how to achieve transformation not by willpower or effort, but by working with a single astonishing truth: what surrounds us in our environment exerts a powerful, and perhaps ‘harness-able’, force! The shape of our environment ultimately shapes us.
  • Sophie Fenton
    An educator, innovator, founder, researcher and strategist, education pioneer Sophie’s repertoire includes whole school design, curriculum adaptation and pedagogy innovation.

    She brings the experience and expertise of creating and launching schools, developing staff and designing innovative education programs to the Education strategy team at Amicus.

    Sophie is highly experienced in end-to-end design, from considerations of the physical spaces to the learning and teaching that happens in them.

    Drawing on her education expertise, Sophie tailors new environments through co-design and facilitates change through learning. She is inspired when working with leaders, teachers and learners to create spaces and experiences where they can flourish and their schools and universities can thrive. To learn in the best place, you have to place yourself with the learned.

    A multi-award winning educator, Sophie has completed a PhD in the Faculty of Education at Monash University, with a pedagogical focus on human-centred learning for the emerging cyber-physical world.

What We Do
  • Education Strategy Consulting
    We’re experts at uncovering how every puzzle piece fits together to enable your school or university’s purpose to become an actionable plan.

    Our education consultants know how to engage a room of leaders, of teaching staff, of students or of parents and find insights and directions that everyone can embrace.

    Our ‘Touchline’ method provides an integrated scaffold that is guaranteed to yield actionable answers – showing how pedagogy and teacher development fits with the set up of the learning environment and technologies to enable your vision to come true at a practical, moment to moment level.
    Learn more
  • Learning Environment Design
    Design takes you on a journey of creativity and inspiration that stays anchored to the learner experience.

    We not only offer our own in-house classroom design and school design expertise, we also regularly join forces and collaborate with a curated network of industry-leading designers and architects.

    We’re especially interested in marrying the most progressive potentials of innovative learning environments with the lived experience and practicalities of learners and teachers.
    Learn more
  • School and learning space construction
    We are highly experienced builders, having completed countless highly successful construction projects from minor interior fitouts through to massive ground-up infrastructure (we rebuilt Daydream island in a recent $70 million project).

    Our speciality is in integrating design and build with careful integration between the budget, design, and timeline.

    To set up your school building construction for success, we recommend early engagement in the role of project manager. Whatever your situation, get in touch and let’s see how we can assist.
    Learn more
  • Technology
    Education technology is an intrinsic component of learning environments. The technology, space, and pedagogy can work together to empower learners and open up incredible learning possibilities that will prepare students for an ever evolving digital world.

    We have an expert team of technologists who are fully fluent and up to date in the latest and best practice solutions for classroom technology.

    When they are not consulting in education they are consulting with Australia’s top workplaces, so you know the solutions will be aligned with the world in which your students will thrive.
    Learn more
Latest Projects
Education
Al-Faisal College Library
Auburn, Sydney
Education
Education Provider (Confidential)
Metroplex Ave, Murarrie
Education
St Catherine's School
Albion St, Waverley
Education
Association of Independent Schools of NSW
York St, Sydney
Education
Ravenswood School
Gordan, Sydney
Education
International Grammar School
Ultimo, Sydney
People are enthusiastic to be here. You can tell there is a sense of belonging here that we didn’t have in our previous environment - it’s been a fantastic move.
- Jamie Davidson, Jamf
I feel that Amicus is working with us, Amicus have our interests at heart.
- Aaron Alphonso, Macquarie Media
The collaborative and engaging environment created by the Amicus project team, enabled an easy working relationship to be developed which made the entire build process simple, easy and non-combative.
- Laurette Chang-Leng, IHG
I have worked with many fitout companies but can honestly say that I have never come across anyone like Amicus! The team are so attentive and really know how to make your client feel extremely special.
- Diem Bui, Coles

Clients we work with

Download the ebook
Profile: Education Spaces
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