Harcourt Terrace Primary School

The school is sited in a residential area, and sensitive architectural location. The 24 mainstream classes in a four-storey block to the street, corresponding to the height of the buildings opposite. The building steps down to a two-storey element (the library, staff facilities and general purpose (GP) hall) and finally to a one-storey element, the special needs unit in the quiet centre of the urban block. To counteract the restricted site, the spaces are interconnected vertically; library, to entrance street, to GP hall below, and horizontally; GP hall to amphitheatre, to ballcourt to canal.

Ireland's standard school designs have faced problems in an increasingly urban society with emerging educational needs, and within the context of an increasingly isolated society. The school proposed a 'social scale' of spaces from classroom to 'active corridor' to the 'urban' part of the school. Allowing the pupils an independence not possible in traditional layouts. By revisiting the fire strategy it was possible to reactivate the normally sterile corridors as 'active corridors', providing an informal learning space and an additional 20% of useable space within the standard brief. Playspaces were given the best external locations, giving the children views across the city to the mountains. The mature trees of the canal and surrounding streets were brought into the school spaces with framed views. The public part of the school is conceived as an urban space in miniature, and can be used independently by the local community outside school hours.

The external material expression of the building was important as it is located on one of Dublin's most architecturally significant streets, a palette of buff brick and granite mediates between the stucco terrace opposite and the red brick terraces adjacent, within Dublin's tradition of picking public buildings out from the redbrick background. Internally the school is brought back to the minimum possible structure and materials, to reduce embodied carbon and maintenance costs. A reinforced concrete structure of slabs and columns, and service spaces pushed to the corners, means that walls between rooms are not structural or fire rated, allowing for future flexibility and the use of low carbon, sustainable materials. The previous buildings on the site were recycled into the playspaces, to recall the memory of what was before. The building is near zero energy with a substantial amount of its power supplied on site by PV panels.