BALLINAMORE COMMUNITY SCHOOL
Ballinamore Secondary School is situated on the outskirts of the town on a sloping site bounded by trees and streams, opening to views of distant fields, farms and mountains; the colours, the colours of rural Ireland, brown, green, blacks and yellow reds changing through the seasons. The school builds the site, excavating and filling, making a pitch, experimentation & external teaching areas, bog gardens & raised beds, then constructing a series of cranked blocks (in plan and section) to re-shape a new geography on the site. The two main classroom blocks fold out to make a generous and welcoming entrance; internally the focus is a double-height concourse at the intersection of the volumes with splayed corridors off it cut by courtyards providing light and views. Circulation spaces are unusually generous by Irish school standards; the building painted a vivid green to emphasise the bold volumes.
