St. Bronagh's Primary School
St Bronagh's Primary School aims to be an educational piece in the community by allowing pupils and locals to see renewable energy in action as well as how nature and architecture can come together. The school has acted as a community catalyst in the local area with another two projects being part of this first phase. The original school building is now being transformed into a youth club to provide further spaces for local community groups to gather.
The site for St Bronagh’s Primary School is set within the dramatic landscape of Kilbroney on the edge of Rosrevor village. The landscape is an area of outstanding natural beauty and the site is within the Rostrevor Conservation Area. Slieve Meen creates the backdrop to the site and it is said the views from Slieve Meen inspired CS Lewis’ Narnia. The site on which the new school has been built is the site of the original Convent of Mercy Girls Primary School. It contained an adhoc arrangement of buildings constructed over the years with no sympathy to their context nor response to the dramatic landscape. It was a clear and straightforward decision to demolish the existing buildings on the site except for the historic convent building attached to the listed church. The site has a number of constraints, one being the site area which is lower than would be expected for a school of this size. This created design issues for site access for vehicles and car parking, play areas, etc. The site more importantly had many opportunities. The setting in the dramatic landscape, ever changing through the seasons, the southeast facing aspect, the adjacency of the listed church building and historic convent building, the sloping site, the mature trees and the location close to the centre of the village.
The design evolved from a response to the landscape. The site is viewed primarily from Church Street which connects Rostrevor to Hilltown. The view from Church street across the site has a backdrop of Slieve Meen mountain. The building form was imagined as linear in nature responding to the constraint of a narrow site. The form was sculpted to reflect the mountains in the background and developed as a large scale monolith that rises up as the street falls and turns towards the mountains respecting the existing church buildings and opening up views towards Carlingford Lough. The top of the monolithic form is covered with the landscape and planted with alpine plants, an extrusion of granite from the earth pushing up through the landscape. The monolith creates protection to the southeast part of the site, sheltering from the prevailing winds and securing this part of the site from the public street. The monolith contains the classrooms at it’s lower side carved out of the solid form and the larger Multi-Purpose Hall at it’s upper, taller side. The classrooms are expressed as large glazed openings on the elevation with rooflights popping through the roof landscape to give natural light deep into the building and avoid the need to waste energy providing artificial light during the day. The classrooms face south and south east and take advantage of the view towards the mountains and treed landscape.
The public side of the monolith facing Church Street is reduced in scale by the timber clad elements responding to the street scape and treed landscape. The Larch cladding reflecting the larch forests in the surrounding mountains. The administration areas such as offices, stores, staff areas, etc are accommodated in the timber clad elements. The internal spaces also respond to the landscape with timber structural roofs expressed in the ceilings below. The entrance foyer is a space where the monolith turns down the site and reflects these geometries. The roof above continues to rise creating a tall space. Within this tall space a series of pods are placed that vary in height and size. The mountain landscape is visible from the entrance foyer and the colours in the mountains are reflected in the colours chosen for the pods to connect this space with the landscape as in the borrowed scenery of shakkei. The library is also a tall space created within the monolith taking advantage of the reduced floor level to this part of the site. The corner of the library is glazed creating views towards the existing church and convent building.
The planting and greenery has been maximised to this constrained site. The green roof provides alpine plants to over 50% of the building footprint attracting insects and birds. Remaining areas of the site are planted with native trees and shrubs. Swift boxes have been built into the school building walls in consultation with RSPB to the correct height to allow the fledgelings leaving the nest for the first time to fly before hitting the ground. The children will continue to work with RSPB to attract birds to the boxes by playing swift calls. We asked the children to create designs for the cowls on the roof transforming the standard plastic cowls into amazing works of art. We supplied the paint for the children and prepared the cowls ready for P6 & P7 to paint their designs. The children are very proud of their artwork displayed on the new roof landscape. We continue to work with the school Eco Council discussing the school design, energy saving measures and how the landscape will be developed over time with enthusiastic children who have a real interest and passion for the environment. There is certainly hope that the next generation may solve the environment issues this and previous generations have created.
