Sutherland Secondary School
North Vancouver (SD #44), British Columbia

Awards:
2009 CEFPI Pacific Northwest Region Pinnacle Awards - Award of Merit

The new replacement Sutherland Secondary School was designed for a capacity of 1000 students on the existing school site. During the Feasibility Study, 11 different alternatives were explored and it was determined that the best option would be to preserve the existing large gymnasium and demolish the remainder of the old school. The School District wanted to use sustainable design principles within the allocated budget; their main goals were: maximum natural light, maximum transparency to the street, transparency through the building from the street at the front of the school to the fields at the back, and to be contextual to Lynn Valley.

This school is designed along a main spine that connects four different wings. These four wings run east/west along this transparent spine which provides a series of student spaces. The spine connects on the second floor to the upper floor of the gym complex and fitness room. Rooms within the wings face either north or south to minimize low angle sunlight and heat gain.

This non-combustible building blends into its surroundings. The steel roof, coloured sympathetically to the treed site, wraps down as a facade in east/west directions with sunshades articulating the few east and west facing windows. Glass is used to dissect the building bulk into a series of smaller volumes, where the spine gouges a view through the bush on the northern boundary. The use of concrete tilt-up panels on the exterior walls will be treated as sympathetically to the surroundings as possible.