Huapai School

Pacific Environments has been working with the BOT of Huapai School since 2010. An in-depth master plan for the school was devised to prepare for the expected growth of the area. Long standing traffic issues were also hoped to be ameliorated as part of this project.

In addition to the master plan for classroom spaces, new sanitary connections were installed to the school and we arranged for traffic planning to be completed to answer long standing entry issues. This master plan document was forwarded to the MoE and from this the school was placed on the Classroom delivery programme.

The programme needed to keep the school operational during construction leading to the development of a village to serve the students during construction. The school had limited space for the creation of the village and the BOT were adamant that they did not want their fields taken out of use for the projected two plus years of the build. The solution involved leasing a portion of a neighbouring site to allow the relocation of buildings to create a village with a shared covered communal space between the classrooms. We were able to create better parking and safe pedestrian access to the new block. A permanent integrated senior block with associated play spaces and rebuild of the current administration space was completed in 2021.

The final design for the new block involved four four-classroom flexible learning studios connected with a shared atrium/breakout space. Each learning studio has a wet area to allow the school to teach art and technology. The upper storey contains a fun bridge across to the main part of the school to keep the building connected through that level.