A&B 2014

Education
Port Glasgow Community
Campus, Inverclyde
Architect:
Archial NORR
Client:
St. Stephen’s High School Parent
Council
Completed December 2013, this project
is the largest and most complex schools
project completed by Archial NORR to
date. The brief called for a denominational
secondary (St Stephen’s High School), a nondenominational
secondary (Port Glasgow
High School), an Additional Support Needs
School (Craigmarloch), an Enterprise Centre
(Community Learning & Development Facility)
and supporting community sports facilities to
be grouped together on an exposed hilltop site.
The result is a rich and diverse building form
which seeks to provide generous natural light,
successful manipulation of scale and highly
effective natural ventilation throughout. In so
doing, the project also seeks to become much
more than just a building – a genuine focus
for its community and a catalyst for the further
regeneration of Port Glasgow.
The apparently complex form is made up
of a series of individual components with
Craigmarloch, and community facilities each
having their own entrance and related external
spaces. Vehicular access and movement to
and around the campus is carefully designed
to keep this separate from pedestrian traffic.
Pupils attending the secondary schools enter
the building through shared entrances, whilst
the formal front door of the building for visitors
is located in the centre of the plan, between its
two welcoming wings.
Dominated by the social/dining area which
forms a “village green” to this educational village
concept this links directly to all other parts of the
campus. The egalitarian symmetry of the front
of the plan slowly gives way to a more relaxed
arrangement driven by context and function.
All routes radiate from the social/dining space,
bringing enhanced legibility to what is a very
large building.
The plan arrangement encourages interaction
and equality between the various functions
in the project, including Craigmarloch School,
where all of Inverclyde Council’s ASN facilities
are brought together into one consolidated
location. In this single storey part of the plan,
the very diverse educational needs of the
children within it can be sensitively addressed in
a fully inclusive manner as an integral part of the
wider campus.
Simple and legible in reality, despite its richness
of form, the first floor plan erodes the idea of the
corridor, where circulation becomes interesting
and even exciting, with views across, through
and between spaces, using galleries, pods
and staircases to punctuate the experience, all
further animated by high quality natural light.
The top of the building houses the semi open
plan art department, which enjoys expansive
views northwards to the Clyde, as well as the
shared library, science classrooms and unique
Oratory and Pod feature rooms all grouped
around visually stimulating multi-level volumes.
ARCHITECTURE AND BUILDING UK | 69