Business South August 2020

| 59 Volume 29 | Issue 4 businesssouth Tennent Brown is concerned with people, first and foremost, and believe our buildings are a response to the ways in which people live, work, play and be. tennentbrown.co.nz PROUD TO SUPPORT TE RAEKURA REDCLIFFS SCHOOL REDCLIFFS SCHOOL Photos by Frank Visser The new Te Raekura Redcliffs School in Christchurch has now opened - nine years after the city’s earthquakes forced the old school to close. Designed to inspire.... COMMUNITY » The Building Intelligence Group Opening day in June at the new Te Raekura Redcliffs School will long live on as a special memory for the architect who led the school’s design, Hugh Tennent, Director of Tennent Brown Architects. “The school community has been on a very long journey, so it was really moving to be there and satisfying too to have such a great outcome,” he says. Considerations for the design included Ministry of Education guidance around size and dimension specifications for the new campus, along with the school’s own brief capturing their values and ways of teaching. “We received a really inspired and high quality education brief from the school. That attracted us to the project because we knew we’d be working with a very thoughtful and passionate school community.” The school’s location by cliffs and caves of considerable archaeological and cultural significance strongly informed the masterplan process, as well as flood management considerations and Tikanga Maori sustainable design principles. Grounded in its location, the school has robust pre-cast walls in red along the street frontage to reference the cliffs after which the school is named. A central hole or opening in that frontage echoes the moa bone cave across the road and also connects it to the estuary. The idea of boatsheds influenced how the design evolved with many of the school buildings and associated decking and platforms built above ground level and with ramps leading down to school fields. Hugh says Tennent Brown had a great team to work with, from The Building Intelligence Group through to builders Naylor Love. “They did an amazing job on a difficult site and, even with the lockdown, managed to reduce the delay Covid could have caused. School Principal Rose McInerney was a real force, so committed to great outcomes for the kids. It was fantastic to have both Dave Dobbyn and Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern at the opening. The school also has a very strong connection with Ngai Tahu values and aspirations so there was a lot of inspired kapa haka and mihi from the kids.” He also acknowledged the contribution made by site architects Chaplin Crooks and the Ministry of Education, whose energy and positivity helped achieve a great result for the school. Tennent Brown has designed other schools in Christchurch since the earthquakes with another design, for Oaklands School, also under construction and nearly completed. Based in Wellington, the leading architectural practice is concerned with people, first and foremost, and sees architecture as needing to uplift the wellbeing of people.