St Andrew's College Preparatory School - Education

Client:          St Andrew's College Board of Governors

Project Brief

Mainzeal has maintained a strong presence at St Andrew’s College, Christchurch since late 2008. Its Preparatory School had a vibrant new building ready for use when classes began this year.
In December 2009, Mainzeal was awarded the building contract for the new Preparatory School building at St Andrew’s College. The new 3,153m2 building accommodated eleven new classrooms and specialist teaching spaces, along with new staff amenities across two levels.
The building was constructed on an area of the College land that had in the past been used as a dump. As a consequence, the contaminated soil and variable bearing capacities necessitated the installation of 103 screw piles, which were each at least 17m long.
The structure was of simple precast concrete construction with a steel/ interspan floor system. Significant glazing provided on the west face allowed heat from solar gain to be stored within the mass of the exposed acid-etched concrete wall panels and the natural concrete floor.
The exterior cladding of the new Preparatory School building includes traditional red brick, feature exposed acid-etched concrete precast panels and zinc metal sheeting. Louvres provide shading over the large window areas to the north and west faces.
The teaching spaces are awash with colour, providing an enlightening environment and encouraging the students to enjoy the teaching process. Facilities for cooking and the sciences have been installed within three specialist teaching spaces. Large breakout areas include a permanent chess board, and bean bags have been provided to encourage reading and a more relaxed education space.
A significant number of sustainable building technologies have been implemented within the new building. They include a full heat recovery heat pump air conditioning system, which is based on heat exchange from recirculated ground bore water. Almost constant ground water temperature means that full heating capacity is available at below zero air temperature.
The abstraction and injection ground water bores are installed to differing depths and adjacent to each other. The installation was contained on a small footprint, resulting in savings on piping infrastructure. This is in contrast to most other ground water source sites that have equal depth bores requiring separation of 1km or more in order to avoid undue cycling of the water within the aquifer. A fully integrated Building Management System continuously monitors energy usage, and the installed pipe infrastructure has capacity for future expansion of the system.