Botany Downs Secondary College

Narratives

Architect Narrative

Between 1995 and 2004 we were fortunate to design 3 new schools, commissioned in response to rapid suburban population growth. These projects presented us with opportunities to rethink traditional educational design and delivery models, to enhance the learning opportunities available in each facility.

While each school is different — one is an intermediate school, one a primary school and one a secondary school — the projects share many design themes, and many of these ideas were able to be evolved further in each successive design.

In each case the architecture is specifically arranged to support learning concepts. Key concepts may be briefly summarised as follows:

1. Consideration of the Whole Student
Each school is designed to accommodate a large number of pupils. The designs all recognise the importance of creating appropriate environments for socialisation experiences on a variety of different scales. Buildings are arranged to support the creating of whanau (family) groups within the overall school population. Over the course of the 3 projects we have developed many different Whanau spaces, commons, and street or courtyard arrangements which enhance the delivery of pastoral care. We’ve learnt that the flexibility they impart to each design also supports the creation of high quality learning environments.

2. Focus on Learning Environments
Environments created in each school are driven by a performance based agenda, These flexible or “elastic” spaces cater for a full range of learning experiences — from traditional instruction through to self-directed research, group work, or virtual learning and teamwork experiences.

3 An Eye on the Future
The flexibility of the buildings, and their structural, information and environmental arrangements reflects an optimistic view of the future. On a micro level, each facility has become more extensively cabled than its predecessor to allow anytime / anywhere access to digital resources, Taking a wider picture we’ve learnt to ensure that the fabric and backbone of the buildings themselves can facilitate straightforward and inexpensive reconfiguration should this becomes necessary.

4 Environmental Sustainability
Each project features a range of sustainable technologies appropriate to its micro climate and intensity of use. Systems including passive ventilation, rainwater recycling, solar hot water heating, heat recovery are not only built into the fabric of the buildings but exposed wherever possible so that the interactions of the buildings with their environment are able to be observed by students — so that the building itself becomes a tool for learning.

5 Community Participation
Community involvement was a key driver in the delivery process of each facility. In each project the community welcomed our proposal to create bold buildings and locate them on their sites so that each one would be an obvious, accessible and inviting statement of the school’s involvement with its community.

The project delivery process improved for each project. Timeframes became longer for each successive project, to reflect the importance of pre-design research and community consultation. The delivery process also evolved from one where initial concerns were focussed on buildings, to one where the focus is now firmly grounded in educational outcomes.

Educator Narrative

The school’s design is based on 6 “schools within a school” (“Home away from home”) concept, each block providing a home base for 250 students across 5 year groups. This ‘Whanau’ grouping combines close pastoral care and academic supervision with opportunities for leadership and service.

Our educational model aims to progress students from dependent to independent learners through a series of stages which are facilitated by the internal design features.

The concepts of a ‘Learning Commons’; “elastic space” (movable glass walls enabling the opening up of the conventional classroom); I.T. pod per 5 teaching spaces; and ubiquitous IT access in classrooms and commons allow a variety of research-proven approaches to learning activities. Glass walls provide visual supervision of students working outside of the ‘classroom’ space. At level one, the specialist spaces (which also have movable walls) have adjacent ‘break-out’ areas with access to ICT pods of 10 work stations.

Self-paced and self-directed learning is further facilitated by the expanded Library-Information Centre which incorporates 25 PCs for advanced independent learners working on-line, using the school intranet, internet or software packages, and the Librarian as a resource person.

The gymnasium together with the Performing Arts Centre, provide for extensive community use. Sports fields, Astroturf courts and ‘play spaces’ provide a variety of options for student recreation and extra-curricular activity.

Staff have dual Faculty and Whanau work spaces (for planning, preparation, marking, conferencing etc); a modern well-appointed staffroom and choice of three larger meeting rooms. A full service centre facility, finance centre and separate public/visitor reception provide functional separation of students and community.

A high spec ICT network incorporating on-demand TV, DVD, Video, intranet, extra net, and internet access 24/7 enhances learning opportunities. A student survey rates the school facilities, equipment and ‘climate’/environment highly.

The school land adjoins a public reserve to the north which contains native flora and fauna, stream and pond, providing opportunity for curriculum studies, community service and a conjoint planting programme (adopt-a-tree) currently activated by our “Family and Friends” community group.

Phase One of the project was completed on time, within budget and to a high standard. (The school has gained national architecture and construction awards recently and is a finalist in the Supreme Award for architecture.) Phase Two planning has commenced within completion aimed for November 2005. Lessons learned: the importance of communication with architects and project management to ensure educational philosophy and pedagogy are incorporated in the “designed-in learning environment”.
We have endeavoured to ‘future-proof’ the design through removable partitioning and ability to further sub —divide space should we wish to enlarge learning environments or create smaller team/group based or individual learning spaces.

The successful integration of vision, philosophy, pedagogy and technology to provide a variety of research-proven approaches to teaching and learning has been both extremely satisfying and inspiring and we look forward to phase two with excitement and keen anticipation.