Schools

Stephenson&Turner's Architects and Engineers are deeply involved in the design of schools, with a 40 year history in architecture and planning for education and civic infrastructure.  In response to weathertightness and seismic issues as well as roll growth and school expansion, our designers have turned their minds to efficiently creating safe and inspirational learning environments. We provide primary and secondary schools with facilities to be proud of and which signifcantly advance the Ministry of Education's 2011 New Zealand School Property Strategy.

The modern learning environments we create are founded on our clear understanding of the Ministry's requirements for school property.  S&T is a national panel member, appointed by the Ministry following an exhaustive selection process, dealing with school building replacements as a result of weather-tightness issues. S&T also developed an internal environment assessment tool for the Ministry known as CIEET.  This tool is now used by all schools to help them and the Ministry to compare their classroom environments to the Designing Quality Learning Spaces guidelines.

Our education design philosophy is founded on:

Understanding 21st Century Learning Environments

Good design begins with the identification of the key educational principles and values. We undertake research to have a thorough understanding of national and international best practice while understanding each school has a particular culture.

Knowing our stakeholders

From the Principal to the Board, the Project Manager, other consultant designers, the contractors, the students and their parents, the school's wider community and local councils, we pride ourselves on appropriately engaging with each stakeholder to ensure the design reflects the drivers that will deliver the best educational outcomes possible given the budget and programme available.  Getting to know the whole school commnunity we find is essential to creating safe and inspirational learning environments.

Sustainability

Schools should have a low impact on the environment and avoid wasted investment through early and rapid obsolescence. The well-designed provision of fresh air, natural light and comfort can have a profound effect on productivity and learning. Sustainable design of a building can its self be an educational tool.

A focus on value

We appreciate the importance of value in every project we undertake. Not only do we respect the budget and programme that is made available to us, we also build in whole of life operational efficiency by taking great care to design a building that provides fresh air, light and comfort as efficiently as possible by ensuring that the architecture works in harmony with the services.