Amesbury School is a new primary school, the first in Wellington for some 25 years,and will cater for 400 students. The school is to open for the beginning of term of 2012.
The design proposal is a response to an aspirational and challenging brief, an absolute commitment to providing the best possible learning and teaching environment, a vision that the built environment be coherent and relevant, and the demanding site constraints.
Site Analysis and Masterplan
The site presents several unique opportunities which have been utilized within the masterplan. The buildings are orientated in the north/south direction to allow sun into all spaces while forming a central sheltered courtyard. Their location allows for planting, extensive playing fields and playgrounds to the east of the site, within the south facing basin.
Axially buildings are located in response to site orientation, the desire for the main entry and community focussed spaces to be highly visible and obvious whether arriving on foot or by bicycle or vehicle. Forms seek to clearly articulate use and provide strong graphic markers to orient the site.
All classroom groupings are able to access the outdoors to both the southern sports field and sunny northern sides of the buildings, onto spaces formed as outdoor learning courts encouraging teaching and learning to permeate outside.
Outdoor spaces are created and carefully modulated with planting and hard landscaping to augment the indoor learning environment. Care has been taken to ensure that possible future settlement on the site can be monitored and mitigated appropriately over time.
The detailed arrangement of classroom and internal spaces follows a detailed consideration of recent exemplars and overlays our recent experience with the considerations of our education focus group on the organisational structure of classroom groupings and a broader flexible environment. The Ministry brief requires that 16 classroom spaces be provided across the projects two stages with ten classrooms in the first stage and six in the second.
The design programme resolves that there be no difference in the provision of classroom space across the schools age distribution allowing occupation to be directed by the school according to need and management requirements rather than being dictated by the physical space. There was however a clear view amongst both the Board and Education Focus Group that distinct and contained classroom spaces for traditional groupings be retained to ensure that all students can feel connected an identifiable 'home' space.
Learning Centres are formed from classrooms grouped into pairs sharing an adjacent learning commons with glazed sliding dividers separating all three allowing any two, or all three spaces to be opened up together to form a larger coherent learning environment. All spaces open directly outdoors to a contained outdoor learning court transitioning to the larger outdoor environment.
Classroom teacher resource and work spaces and withdrawal spaces bring together teachers from multiple Learning Centres to encourage cooperation and a broader team focus and thereby discouraging silo behaviours.
This project is being delivered by a design and build consortium led by Maycroft Construction and supported by the following specialised consultants. Ian Rattray Building Consultants Clendon Burns and Park Norman, Disney and Young Moorhead and Newdick Landscape Architects Tonkin and Taylor Team ESD Holmes Fire and Safety Tim Kelly Transportation Planning Marshall Day Acoustics
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