Heart of the matter

From BlackWhite magazine - issue 11, gold standard

St Hilda’s looks towards a brilliant future with a richly layered campus redevelopment brimming with meaningful design details.

St Hilda's Collegiate School in Dunedin has a longstanding reputation as a leading Anglican girls’ school, renowned for its commitment to academic excellence. With a history dating back to 1896, the state-integrated institution nurtures a vibrant community of approximately 450 students. Last year saw the completion of a significant refurbishment that will help see St Hilda’s legacy continue as a cornerstone of education in the region with a modernisation that not only better serves the needs of the community, but looks great while doing it.

Led by Cameron Grindlay of Dwelling Architectural Design, the school’s inspiring architectural transformation saw an aging campus clad in colourless plaster and concrete flourish into an atmosphere that centres imagination and creativity. With an admirable commitment to repurposing materials and an elevated colour palette, the refurbishment showcases a structure with sophisticated modernist sensibilities, words like “dull”, “drab” and “convent-like” which had been used to describe the school just five years ago no longer fit.

After Dwelling’s success with the school’s new Visual and Performing Arts Centre, which opened in 2019, Cameron and his team were asked to turn their attention to four other buildings on campus. In addition to known maintenance related to the buildings’ advanced age, an audit was completed to try and uncover other issues that the school faced so that the refurbishment and master planning could be handled proactively. Many of the challenges they uncovered were related to enrolment outgrowing fire safety regulations as well as a lack of accessibility and connection, both within the campus and the school’s relationship to the city.

The campus sits on an incredible piece of real estate overlooking Dunedin with expansive views of the city and harbour. However, its relationship to Dunedin was blocked by the cold and dark Whitby Hall. Since the school’s dance and drama programmes had already moved into the new arts centre building, Whitby was largely empty aside from toilets, storage and a moist and chilly classroom. Other issues that needed to be addressed included poorly designed internal gutters and leaking plaster that was causing growing maintenance issues; the existing chapel could no longer house the entire school; the classrooms and canteen needed to be larger; the school lacked on site catering facilities to accommodate their 150 boarders; and the two main stairwells to the quad were insufficient for moving staff and students.

Amid these issues, Dwelling also found plenty of opportunities and special characteristics that defined St Hilda's and needed to be reflected in the redesign. “Heart, quality, community and connection; these principles became the core of all design decisions. We identified that the heart of the campus was the chapel, and this needed to be supplemented by the two other important spaces that bring community and connection, the library and cafeteria,” Cameron explains.

Cameron says that working across the four existing buildings while trying to find a way to unite them and reduce maintenance issues going forward for the school was indeed a challenge, but it was also satisfying from a practical point of view. “The chapel was extended to allow the entire school to meet while connecting the first floor of the quad between Geraldine House and humanities via a new mezzanine, ensuring greater accessibility and movement within the campus. This was supplemented with a new third stairwell in Whitby Hall to relieve congestion. The chapel roof was partially raised and the footprint was extended to the line of the existing quad veranda only, ensuring the quad was not encroached upon.”

“The exterior chapel extension was kept in a similar style to the existing but we added hints of blue and cedar to make it more welcoming and open while the interior pays homage to the original chapel, which was a popular space. The library and cafeteria were relocated into the new Whitby Hall, adjacent to the chapel, to bring the heart of the school together as one and open the campus to the city via glazing to the east. Heriot Row became the new access to the cafeteria – meaning it was away from the main student thoroughfare, ensuring greater safety. Whitby Hall’s new mono pitched roof faces towards the outside of the school to eliminate three problematic internal gutters. New walls to the south and east of Whitby and a new north wall for the chapel further reduced construction details contributing to the leaky building plaster,” he adds.

As the design developed, trees became emblematic of the project design’s overarching ideas of heart, community and connection. “The school motto is ‘Beati Mundo Corde’, meaning ‘blessed are the pure in heart’. Trees have a purity to them and bring protection and shelter. They bear fruit, and the ideas of heart, community and connection similarly ‘bear fruits’ like peace and patience. In an ever-changing world that is not always changing for the better, the virtue of trees is to be commended and learnt from,” Cameron says.

Vertical timber was used along with exposed structural steel to reinforce the idea of trees and community. Structural ‘trees’ in the library, an acoustic ‘tree canopy’ ceiling and a 6m high tree ‘growing’ in the new stairwell were added to offer a message of shelter, safety and the opportunity to grow and explore.

While sending project materials to the landfill during demolition would been less expensive, the school’s approach to recycling and reusing what they could was commendable. The existing Oregon trusses from the chapel were repurposed as timber trim. In the new chapel, rimu veneer was carefully removed and reinstalled as a tribute to the original chapel. Longrun tray roofing was reused, as were windows and doors. Most of Whitby Hall’s foundation was kept and existing Jarrah tongue-and-groove flooring from the building was salvaged and repurposed. Existing heat pumps were also relocated to places more easily accessible for maintenance.

Since the school’s original exterior colour scheme lacked interest, that design team looked to the skies, surroundings and St Hilda’s branding for hues that would accent the buildings’ architectural elements. “Given the location and orientation of the school, lots of natural colour comes in through the windows which constantly changes depending on the weather – from brilliant blue skies to dark grey storm clouds,” Cameron says.

The design team worked with Resene to create a custom paint colour to match St Hilda’s signature blue. After meeting with his Resene Representative to discuss other potential colour options that would coordinate well with the custom colour, Cameron took A4 drawdown paint swatches of the shortlisted options to get a proper sense of how the colours would sit together in situ alongside the rest of the material palette. To add further character and depth, a range of other Resene blues and two greys were used to complement the base palette of Resene Black White, Resene Half Black White and Resene Black: Resene Bondi Blue, Resene Wet N Wild, Resene Endeavour, Resene Lochmara, Resene Curious Blue, Resene Picton Blue, Resene Malibu, Resene Anakiwa, Resene Grey Friars and Resene Half Grey Friars. Another small yet meaningful detail is the steel painted in Resene Bright Spark and Resene Poppy, which pops out from the surrounding windows to give the symbolic impression of a cross.

“I have a good relationship with my Resene Representative, Elmo Tobaiwa. He's fantastic. At the start of the detailed design section of our projects, we always ask him for advice. We discuss the substrates and what we would like to use, and he provides us with recommendations. He is always super helpful, super fast and is the main reason we continue to use Resene – great service,” Cameron says.

Now that the project is completed, it’s the special character elements that continue to stand out for Cameron. “The structural ‘trees’ as well as Alex Rinaldi's ‘tree of life’ in the stairwell and the golden cross on the outside of the building are all favourite details,” he says.

While the custom Resene blue that was created to match the school’s official branding was his favourite hue used, Cameron also loved the elements painted in Resene Wet N Wild. “We didn't use a lot of it, but it is unapologetically blue – not light, not dark, not a grey blue – it’s blue!”

After years of hard work, the laudable redevelopment of St Hilda’s campus has been getting its flowers. Along with several other awards, the project received a Resene Total Colour Education Award. “Colour is a powerful tool when wielded well – and this project certainly wields it with expertise, using a tasteful colour palette to draw attention to select architectural elements and to set the scene. Perched high on the hilltop, the blue reaches out to the sky, enlivening the building and giving it presence. It's strong, purposeful and confident,” the judges commented.

For those debating whether to include more colour in their project paint palettes, Cameron offers some sound advice. “The world is full of colour, embrace it,” he recommends. “I know I fall into this trap a lot, but you are allowed to use more than black, white, grey and timber. As designers, it seems we are often unable to see that.”

Colours mentioned in this article

Products mentioned in this article

Project: Dwelling Architectural Design
Build: Stevenson & Williams
Painting: James Wren & Co
Images: STW Studio
Tree of life artwork: Rinaldi Design

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