Rundle Academy is an independent co-education school covering Grades 4-12, specializing in the instruction of students who have a diagnosed learning disability. The Academy has ambitions to:
Background
- Provide optimal environments for learning & teaching, specific to diagnosed learning disabilities and associated co-occurring diagnoses;
- Provide additional and upgraded facilities to support a variety of options, and provide potential opportunity for further community engagement and revenue generation;
- Enable the school to fulfil its ambitions in becoming a recognized Centre of Excellence for supporting students with identified learning disabilities, and training educators in this field.
Cornerstone Planning Group were commissioned to develop a Functional Program defining the spatial requirements needed to support the Academy’s student population now and into the foreseeable future.
Process
The Cornerstone team delivered a series of workshops with teaching staff in order to fully understand the Academy’s objectives, priorities and school culture. The resulting Functional Program included specialized flexible teaching classroom spaces, sports facilities, a black box theatre, cafeteria and teaching kitchen and a Teaching Centre of Excellence.
Solution
In order to support decision-making in the later design stages of the Academy’s Expansion, Cornerstone also provided an assessment of potential space-saving and phasing opportunities. This was intended to ensure the school’s growth could be organic and aligned with the current close-knit, non-institutional culture.
The Results
The Functional Program, and the space requirements detailed within, will contribute to the development of a Capital Plan. This will then be used to gain funding support for the Academy’s redevelopment.
