Stunning new school for city’s Harcourt Terrace

THESE are the stunning architectural images for a new ‘urban school’ to be located at a well-known city centre junction.

The Minister for Education and Skills, Jan O’Sullivan announced that Tún architecture + design was the winner of an architectural design competition for a new primary school to be built at Harcourt Terrace in Dublin 2.

The competition was to design a school for the site that comprises the former Garda station and Irish Film Censor Building overlooking the Grand Canal.

The brief was for a 24-classroom primary school, with special needs classes, on a total floor size of approximately 4,500 square metres.

This exciting challenge posed design opportunities that Tún architecture + design exploited successfully.

The project followed a very successful 2012 competition to design a post-primary school, and a 2013 design ideas competition for a primary school.

This latest competition was an architect-led full design team challenge. There were an impressive number of 70 entries received for the competition with several coming from abroad. The competition jury selected a shortlist of five entries to develop their designs in a second stage.

Minister O’Sullivan said the aim of the competition was to focus on creating innovative places of learning, fit for the students of today and tomorrow.

“I am very pleased with the standard of entries and wish to congratulate Tún architecture + design for their winning elegant design,” the minster said. “Tún architecture + design are a young Dublin-based practice who bring a fresh approach with simple yet refined ideas to school design.”

The team included engineers Waterman and Moylan Consulting and Quantity Surveyors Nolan Construction Consultants.

“I am delighted to announce that my department also intends to award the commission to the winning design team to develop their design and construct the school on the Harcourt Terrace site.,” the minister added. “This project is included in the recently announced 6-Year Capital Programme and is scheduled to go to construction in 2017.”

The minister also congratulated the other four commended schemes for the tremendous effort and innovation they demonstrated in their detailed entries. The winner will receive a €20,000 award. The other four shortlisted entries will receive €5,000 each.

“The outcome of this competition was a great success with a very worthy winner and commended highly innovative shortlisted entrants,” the minister stated. “This again confirms that design competitions are a great option for procuring school designs teams.”

The competition was an opportunity for the Department of Education and Skills to explore with architects and educationalists the development of innovative architectural designs that respond to emerging 21st century needs of primary school learners and teachers.

The minister thanked the judging panel for the competition that included representatives of the Department of Education and Skills. The Royal Institute of Architects in Ireland administered the competition on behalf of the department.