| 75 T T Ange Davidson Innovative design The new Heretaunga technology block at Hastings Intermediate School. ARCHITECTURE DCA Architects: Heretaunga Technology Block The new Heretaunga technology block at Hastings Intermediate School is a celebration of innovative educational design from DCA Architects based in Rotorua and Hastings. With over 15 years design experience in the education sector, DCA Architects founder and managing director Darryl Church says the Heretaunga block showcases some of the best thinking around shared learning spaces over related curriculums such as food, materials and woodwork technology, art and music. The high-performance new build sits on the same square meterage as the previous tech block but is designed for all subject spaces to converge into a shared learning area, where students can be working alongside other curriculums to cross pollinate ideas in the arts and technology. “This shared learning space is visually connected to every specialist subject space through internal glazed partitions within the building yet from the road outside, you see four distinct subjects. It provides an option for all the technology curriculums to come together as there are many crossovers between them. The shared space may have a 3D printer, drawing tables and a laser cutter that would be used by art students, woodwork and a student’s pattern drafting,” believes Darryl. The building follows along the school’s roadside boundary creating space for an internal courtyard in front of the building. Previously there was unused space between the boundary and the tech block but by moving the building closer to the boundary, Darryl was able to create an outdoor learning space and the school gained more land. The music room has a large garage door that opens to a small amphitheatre for indoor-outdoor performances. This extends the learning environment where the curriculums can connect with the outdoors. There’s plenty of research behind the psychology of designing education spaces and DCA Architects have an accredited learning planner who takes the education lead in the office. “We design flexible learning spaces as not all teachers share the same learning philosophy. Some teachers want to be contained while for others, it’s all about collaboration and they’re more than happy to pull back the walls and doors and teach combined classes,” says Darryl. “We’re designing spaces that are flexible for the future and could be three or one teacher spaces, or two and one classrooms. This works well when there are cross overs between different curriculums.” Heretaunga Tech block has a future thinking lens and alongside the shared learning space are rooms with specific requirements for each curriculum. In the food technology room, fixed appliances like ovens and dishwashing are on the outside edges of the classroom with furniture that can be pulled together for a variety of table configurations in the middle of the room. Darryl credits the effective use of the school’s four House colours on the building’s exterior to art teacher, Kerri Sherrand who was enthusiastic for a colourful scheme. “Between the two of us, we came up with the idea of using the four colours on the four corners of the building. It’s a vibrant and colourful scheme.”
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