Colour as identity.
St John the Evangelist Primary School is a complete new build in Ōtara, a two-storey school housing classrooms, a library, media and drama rooms and an administration block, set within a site shared with a Catholic Parish, Marae, Kōhanga Reo and Preschool.The architecture by Eclipse Architecture is warm and community-centred. But it is the cladding palette that gives the school its face. Nu Wall aluminium in Terracotta, Pioneer Red, Scoria and Ironsand wraps the new building in earth tones that feel rooted in the culture and identity of Ōtara. Three profiles add variation in scale and shadow across the facade, preventing the large building from reading as a single flat surface.The result is a school with presence, one that a community can look at and recognise as its own.
