54 HERITAGE & HISTORIC (INCLUDING ADAPTIVE RE-USE) SUPPLEMENT
The finishes were specified to be quite similar throughout the corridors in the new and old elements, so there is less differentiation
STEM academy would, as Viola puts it, “pick up on the challenge of creating a school that could be contemporary in an older space, but matching the requirements of a modern school.”
Steve adds that the STEM requirements were a key part of the brief, but that a lot of the associated functions would not have been suitable for the existing spaces: “That was why we came up with the diagram that surrounded the existing courtyard, adding an extension that – while in a tight footprint – could host bigger, flexible spaces around what would then be an internal courtyard between the old and new.” “We considered the courtyard as a symmetry axis,” explains Viola, “and mirrored the existing building there to what became the new project.”
The architects then designed a corridor here between the volumes, interconnecting the brick building at various points under a glazed roof to the new functionalities, including a sports hall, new classrooms, a ‘STEM harbour’ of four new laboratories, and a large atrium in the centre.
Interior design Going inside, the now connected buildings consist largely of “simple and neutral colours,” with most of the surfaces left exposed.
This simple colour palette was in part inspired by the school logo, with greens and blues across the interior intended to help
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communicate the school’s identity. The material palette also was used to help blend the two volumes. The finishes were specified to be quite similar throughout the corridors in the new and old elements, so that there is less differentiation between the two – the walls, floors and other elements recurring through these meeting points – as Steve puts it, “making the two parts feel like one.” According to Steve however, such finishes were not the priority for the architects, but instead “the quality of the spaces, in terms of the geometry and daylight rather than the finishes.”
“Enough to create a great finish of
course,” he clarifies, “but we needed to spend the money wisely, and we thought there was more value in its function.”
Quality spaces With quality spaces being key, the architects focused not just on the visual aspects of this interconnection, but also the ways in which they could best maximise the available space.
The team created bigger group spaces that could be divided, for example, and designed break-out spaces off of corridors that double up as meeting or performance areas.
“That kind of sums up how we achieved the brief with the restrained budget,” says Steve, “offering as much benefit as possible to the school as we could.”
ADF APRIL/MAY 2020
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