Grange Hill refurbishment and ELC
Refurbishment and extensions to existing primary school, consisting of existing heritage building and 1970’s extensions and conversion to new Early Learning Centre and outdoor play area and including classes for years prep to year four.
Project Details
Architects
H2o Architects
Address
301 Cotham Road Kew, Victoria 3101 Australia
Submitter
Tim Hurburgh
Cost
$3M
Photographer
James Sadgrove
Project Overview
This project satisfies the most fundamentally sustainable building proposition – the reuse of an existing facility designed for another purpose – a Primary School up to Year 6 with an unused and inaccessible rear ‘lawn’- and providing it with a new life as an ELC with adjacent playground + additional classes from Prep to Year 4.
The Ed Spec had required that a teaching pedagogy be adopted based on the Reggio Emilia Philosophy. Fundamental to our understanding of this was the provision of:
• Shared entrance – Foyer
• Learning street – Mall and Piazza
• Gathering spaces – Plaza
• Inside / outside area – Wintergarden
• Central Kitchen – Cafe
• ELC entrance – Porch
• Outdoor play area – ‘Perfumed garden’
• Resource centre – Toolshed
Several challenges arose in reconciling these needs:
• Overcoming the tyranny of the existing narrow, elongated, poorly lit and visually uninteresting corridors
• Creating ‘eddies’ and quiet ‘backwaters’ off the ‘learning river’
• Finding a suitable area for adjacent ELC rooms with shared toilets opening onto available outdoor area.
These challenges were met firstly by utilizing a series of circular spatial interventions – accompanied by new skylights above – of varying scales to create opposing ‘places’ inside, around and beside a central gallery – the mall.
The plaza becomes a central gathering area and providing access to principal spaces.
The piazza is a reflective space opposite the cafe and outside the porch giving access to the ELC rooms.
These themes are reinforced by a vibrant interior colour scheme, materials selection and graphic display.
The second challenge was to accommodate adjoining ELC rooms with external play access. This was met by placing the 2 ELC children’s rooms within the existing hall, either side of shared toilets and store opening onto a North facing outdoor play area.
A mediating inside /outside learning area is created by the unusual device of ‘reverse engineering’ a covered verandah within the floor area of the old hall and opening up existing windows to form a colonnaded façade.
The outdoor play area is conceived similarly to the interior as a series of linked static play spaces- soft hard, grass and sand – connected by a meandering compacted sand pathway.
