Te Uho O Te Nikau Primary School, Flat Bush. Ministry of Education's PPP3 Schools

Architect/Designer: ASC Architects

As part of the New Zealand Ministry of Education’s PPP3 Schools Project, ASC Architects were required to produce a Primary School design to be built on three separate sites, with the potential for the same design to be applied to future sites. 

Each school would cater for a roll capacity of 560 students ranging from ages 5-10. The design had to be flexible to be used across a range of individual site contexts and adaptable enough to be able to individually reflect the unique qualities of each school’s place, culture, and context. 

Innovative learning environments over two levels were designed to provide multiple educational methods to encourage and foster openness, collaboration, and connectivity in all aspects of school life.

The open-plan learning spaces were also designed to maximise the connection to exterior learning spaces and the central courtyards at the heart of each school. 

A separate cultural narrative for each school was developed to inform individualised planning and design responses required for each specific site and to assist site-specific selections of colours, finishes, signage, building graphics and landscaping. 

The flexibility of Shaw Contract’s carpet tile collections made them the perfect choice for this project as it allowed for different selections to be provided for each individual school based on consultation with each school and responding to each school’s individual culture and context. 

Products used:

Shaw Mindful Play
Shaw Brushworks
Tarkett Primo Premium