Xsquared Architects was engaged to develop a Masterplan for Ogilvie High School by the Department of Education. This urban secondary school for girls is located on a hilly site in New Town.
The Masterplan brief required us to work with a significant suite of existing heritage listed buildings, to achieve full separation of vehicle and pedestrian traffic; accommodate new year 11 and 12 teaching and learning areas; and locate a new performing arts centre that could also operate as an independent public facility.
Ogilvie High School suffered from very poor disability access, with many different floor levels across a number of buildings on a site with a significant slope. A new entry was proposed to serve both the School and the performing arts centre as a standalone facility. The entry location allowed us to offer cost effective centralisation of vertical transportation, which enabled us to propose a way to achieve full disability access across the suite of School buildings. Rationalising circulation paths meant travel distances could be reduced, improving efficiency.
Documents were presented in the Masterplan as a series of traditional 2D plans, but included master planning by horizontal section to illustrate access strategies, and by function to illustrate minimisation of crossover between year groups, and separation of vehicular and pedestrian traffic.
This Masterplan demonstrates the strategic thinking Xsquared Architects brought to the brief, providing an innovative solution to Ogilvie High School’s site challenges.
Image by Xsquared Architects