Wairakei Primary School

Wairakei Primary School, attending to over 200 students, is a co-educational school situated in the North-West of Christchurch since 1950. Seeking to update and increase the working life of Block One, Two and Three, Brosnan was engaged by the Ministry of Education to develop school facilities to contemporary standards.

The project provided unique complexities: Wairakei School expected to continue operating during the upgrade; due to extremely tight time constraints, work started based on pre-design sketches rather than formal drawings and the extent of the refurbishments for the facilities was unknown due to the condition of the buildings involved.

Consequently, the final scope was only established well into the project’s lifecycle. Extensive renovations had to be done on the three blocks, with a total area of 600m2, to transform outdated classrooms into open-space Learning Environments, modernising the design of the facilities.

The ageing buildings also suffered degradation through the 70 years the school has been operating, needing external cladding remedial work to protect and rejuvenate the school’s property. Accommodating the needs of the school, the students were moved to safe areas to continue their activities and, as work was completed, returned to the new spaces in a staged manner.

Completing the refurbishment and remedial work on schedule in January 2018, Brosnan successfully faced the project’s challenges with our trademark commitment to excellence and confidence in construction.

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