SCHOOL'S IN SESSION

Campus enhancements at St Clare’s Primary School offer students an improved learning environment.

Engaged as head contractor, landscape specialist PTA Landscapes undertook the construction of multiple new outdoor spaces around the existing campus of St Clare’s Primary School in Officer, Victoria.

A relatively new campus, the school was missing key elements that would provide students with a variety of outdoor recreational and educational opportunities. PTA Landscapes stepped in to provide complete landscape services from set-out, excavation drainage and earthworks to fences, playground and structural elements, irrigation and more.

A large campus, the project was divided into six separate zones, making the job a huge undertaking. PTA Landscapes transformed an existing sloped grass area into a flat multipurpose synthetic grass sports court. Six-metre-high fencing was erected around three sides of the court to ensure students’ safety and sports-grade synthetic grass and multipurpose sports goals were installed. Surrounded by low terrace walls that form seating, the area functions as a year-round recreational space.

Situated close to the new sports zone is the Circular Shelter. This large, fixed shade structure is a central meeting space for students, offering plenty of room to gather. The steel and timber construction has a unique architectural profile and is easily identified on campus. Edging the structure is a playground area consisting of rubber softfall pathways, feature rocks, logs and rope play elements. Planted with lush greenlife, the adventure space will continue to grow and mature as time goes on. Stone steppers wind through parts of the garden and connects the playspace to two large lawns on either side.

Full-scale refurbishment works on the school’s lawns was also undertaken by PTA Landscapes, which included installing new high-draining turf growing media, as well as extensive drainage and irrigation. These works provided the school with a lawn area that will stand up to the high traffic use expected of schools.

Offering further shelter from the elements is a grand structure open-air shelter. Featuring timber roof battens, the shelter is built on large mass-engineered concrete footings to ensure stability. The shade structure covers a multitiered viewing terrace with a plethora of seating, which is winged by two newly installed exposed concrete stairways and provides a mass viewing area over the lower courts.

One of the greatest alterations on this project was perhaps the open learning space. Transformed from a paddock of long grass to a multiuse educational training area, the open learning space is comprised of multiple tiered shade structures over curved learning seats, vegetable planters, a garden shed and timber work benches. This new space is used as an outdoor classroom as well as a social setting for students.

Developing another area for play, PTA Landscapes also created a highly usable space for play, leisure and educational use through terracing. The rock terrace provides amphitheatre style seating for an outdoor classroom or for students to gather and sit socially. The dense planting throughout softens the grand assembly of large mudstones. Synthetic grass was installed on the lower pedestrian area, native planting was added and the school’s three flagpoles were fitted with up-lights.

Forming a connection between the synthetic grass area to the south and the rock terrace area, native plants, feature rocks and stone feature steppers were later integrated, while additional landscaping to the carpark embankment kept the lush plantlife flowing around the campus and connected the gardens.

Despite weather delays and Covid-19 impacts on labour and resources, PTA Landscapes managed to create an incredible campus for St Clare’s. The architectural structures, abundant planting, terraced landscapes and functional material palette come together to form a fun and hardy environment useful for both leisure and education.

PROJECT PARTICULARS

Client St Clare’s Primary School

Location Officer, Victoria

Landscape Contractor PTA Landscapes