Port Glasgow Shared Campus

This project is the largest and most complex schools project completed by Archial NORR to date. The brief called for a denominational secondary (St Stephen’s High School) a non-denominational secondary (Port Glasgow High School) a very large Special Needs School (Craigmarloch) an Enterprise Centre and supporting community sports facilities to be grouped together on an exposed hilltop site. This has led to a rich and diverse building form which seeks to provide generous natural light, successful manipulation of scale and highly effective natural ventilation throughout. In so doing, the project also seeks to become a catalyst for the further regeneration of this peripheral area of Port Glasgow.

The apparently complex form breaks down into a series of individual components each with their own entrance and related external spaces. Vehicles and pedestrians, adults and children, front of house and back of house are all successfully separated. Pupils have their own dedicated entrances, whilst the formal front door of the building for visitors is located in the centre of the plan, between its two welcoming wings.

Dominated by the social/dining area which forms a “village green” to this educational village concept, the egalitarian symmetry of the front of the plan slowly gives way to a more relaxed arrangement driven by context and function. All routes start and begin in the social/dining space, bringing enhanced legibility to what is a very large building. The plan arrangement also encourages interaction and equality between all of the various functions in the project, including Craigmarloch School where all of Inverclyde Council’s Special Needs facilities have been brought together into one consolidated location. In this single storey part of the plan, the very diverse educational needs of the various children within it can be sensitively addressed in a fully inclusive manner as an integral part of the wider campus.