Saint Kentigern Girls’ Primary School – Site Tour

The new Saint Kentigern Girls’ Primary School is located on the prominent Shore Road frontage of the Saint Kentigern Remuera campus, providing a strong presence and place of arrival for the school. Over 70 attendees listened attentively as Principal Juliet Small and Architectus Director Patrick Clifford generously shared their project journey, key design drivers, and, importantly, how they navigated a challenging site to optimise learning environments based on a clear spatial framework.

Architectus provided a succinct summary of the award-winning facility:

“The design is underpinned by the principle of using architecture to better promote positive learning. A series of curated spaces provide for formative development; areas for social engagement with peers, places of retreat, opportunities for physical and creative freedom; and functional teaching spaces.

The site is complex and steeply sloped, challenges that the spatial planning has embraced and converted into opportunities. The primary organising element is an atrium with a multi-use social stair – the ‘heart’ of the school - providing physical, visual, and social connections across all levels. A series of offset levels step up the landscape, softening its position within the surrounding environment and providing space for outdoor learning opportunities – a key requirement of the brief.” Architectus Quote

Sarah Hewlett Diprose
LENZ Chair

Photographers: Sarah Hewlett Diprose & Simon Devitt