Living School has lodged a new development application to establish a middle school campus on Carrington Street, a move that would add to its already approved Brown and Jolly development and further embed the school within Lismore’s CBD.

The application proposes repurposing a vacant commercial building, formerly occupied by Headspace, to create additional learning spaces for Living School’s Years 5 to 8 students. While described as temporary, the campus is designed to work alongside the longer-term development of the former Brown and Jolly building and nearby laneway sites.

Founder John Stewart said the proposal is not about growing enrolments, but about expanding the type of learning environments available to students as the broader CBD precinct continues to take shape.

“The intention is that it adds to the whole section of the middle school,” he said. “The focus is to be at the heart of Lismore and to expand and extend in the sense of low-cap buildings, but not population.”

Stewart said the Carrington Street building offers an opportunity to create more formal learning spaces while still staying true to Living School’s project-based approach.

“We’ll be fitting in seven different learning spaces, which will accommodate all our learning styles for project-based learning,” he said. “It gives us access to more traditional learning spaces, while still allowing students to work in the way we believe is most effective.”

Plans outlined in the DA also include changes to the outdoor areas, with the existing car park set to be reimagined as usable student space.

“The students will be able to get more play space because we’re looking to make the car park into more of a play area,” Stewart said. “We want to grow some green around it, put some trees in, and expand by conjoining those spaces so they feel connected rather than separate.”

Although the Carrington Street campus is described as temporary, Stewart said it plays an important role as the school continues to develop its nearby sites, including the Brown and Jolly building.

“Right now, we’re looking at a lease opportunity to have a temporary space as we continue with the development of the other areas,” he said. “There’s still a lot to do, and this gives us the flexibility to keep moving forward.”

Development of the broader Living School CBD footprint is progressing in stages, supported by a mix of grants, fundraising and ongoing construction.

“It’s not a single schedule,” Stewart said. “We’re taking it in pieces. We’ve got a grant attached to part of it, we’re looking at donations and raising funds as well, and we’re in the process of building and accessing those spaces.”

He said the Carrington Street site could be activated relatively soon.

“We’re looking to be in there within three or four months,” he said.

One of the defining features of Living School, Stewart said, is that students are actively involved in shaping their learning environments, including the physical buildings themselves.

“This is actually the school the kids built,” he said. “The students are part of the design phase. They’re saying what they want in the building and how they want it to work.”

He said watching a school evolve inside an existing commercial space gives students a strong sense of ownership and connection.

“They’ll see a school evolve out of an old department store around them,” he said. “They come up with ideas, and we implement them. They actually see their ideas become part of the space they learn in.”

Stewart believes adapting vacant CBD buildings for education also presents a broader opportunity for regional centres like Lismore.

“These regional towns have these massive department store areas that are too big and sitting vacant,” he said. “We want to be a model that shows you can do really creative schools that are interconnected with community, for a lot less cost, but with a lot more impact.”

Beyond education, Stewart said having students learning across multiple CBD sites strengthens social connections and everyday activity in the city.

“This isn’t about exclusivity or being elite,” he said. “It’s about asking how we integrate a learning community with a business community and a social community, so everybody benefits.”

He said encouraging students and families to walk and ride into town, rather than relying on car drop-offs, is a deliberate part of the vision.

“We want to be a school where people are walking into the CBD and riding bikes,” Stewart said. “We don’t want traffic backed up in the centre of town. When people are moving around on foot, traffic becomes more cautious, crossings become more important, and the whole town grows around that social interaction.”

Stewart described the Carrington Street proposal as a form of social investment, not a commercial one.

“This isn’t someone coming in trying to build a big business block,” he said. “It’s about a social belief that a community needs to thrive, and towns need children actively using public spaces.”

The development application will be assessed by Lismore City Council. If approved, the Carrington Street campus would operate alongside the Brown and Jolly development, further expanding Living School’s presence in the CBD and reinforcing its vision of learning embedded within the life of Lismore.