2014 : Recycling and Repurposing
We are often asked how we integrate environmentally sustainable design into our school projects. While new buildings provide us with many opportunities to integrate good orientation, clever building systems and well insulated building fabric, existing buildings can be more challenging.
St. Thomas Aquinas Primary School was accommodated in 1960’s buildings. The building fabric was sound, but disability access limited and the classrooms did not offer flexible teaching and learning spaces.
Repurposing the buildings seemed to be an environmentally sustainable and economical solution at this school. New spaces were designed within the existing envelope, responding to the pedagogy that the school had invested in over the preceding years.
This small project demonstrates how old buildings can be re-imagined to provide flexible and contemporary teaching spaces. This is a project that we are extremely proud of, it was delivered within a tight budget and time frame, to the pedagogical brief developed by the schools educators.
