Light Timber Construction (Schools)

Light Timber Construction (or LTC) was the name given to a standardised architectural design used for the construction of hundreds of state school buildings in Victoria, Australia, between 1954 and 1977. LTC school buildings were designed for speed of construction, uniform appearance and low cost. Many LTC school buildings are either being demolished, or refurbished and so intact original-condition examples are becoming rare.

Following the end of World War II, there was a sudden increase in the natural birth rate, or "baby boom", in Victoria, as well as a massive increase in immigration. This led to a sharp rise in demand for school places, which the Department of Education in Victoria was struggling to meet. In addition the Department had lowered the age of school admission to five years in 1946, and since the War there had was a substantial increase in students continuing into high school. A report commissioned in 1949 by the director of the Department of Education, Sir Alan Hollick Ramsay estimated that local high school enrolments would increase by 20,000 students over the next decade. Simultaneously, on account of the war, there was a shortage of building materials and labour in Victoria. In response to this crisis prefabricated buildings were seen as a solution, with ex-military huts pressed into service along with imported buildings. Several hundred aluminium classrooms manufactured by the Bristol Corporation were imported from England for use throughout the state until the program was ended in the mid-1950s.

Hollick recommended to the State Government that a standardised design for all state schools be adopted, as such a design would reduce the expense in commissioning architects to individually design each school, and would allow school construction to proceed more efficiently whilst using less building resources. In the early 1950s the Department of Public Works developed the "Light Timber Construction" (or LTC) design. A number of initial prototype schools were built in the LTC style, as it was tested and refined. An early example, still in existence, is the Croxton School in the Melbourne suburb of Northcote. Initially codenamed the "Leighton School" and classed as "prototype six", this school was built in 1956 and provides an example of the refinement of the LTC design. By the end of the 1950s the standardised design had been used for seventeen new schools.

...
Wikipedia