Holy Family National School, Rathcoole

Rathcoole Primary School is at the centre of an existing but expanding suburb with a strongly established community. The new school was constructed on a very tight existing site where the existing 1970’s school had to remain and also be upgraded.

The new building is made up of a series of running gables across and around the original block, forming an urban courtyard in the gap between them. The gables echo the line of the adjacent Dublin Mountains and perhaps the waves of suburban houses around them. Internally, the volume created by the gabled form allowed the provision of high well- lit classrooms and an architectural sequence of two halls- one lower with an undulating gable, the second penetrating the volume to the roof at the centre of the plan. Both are immediately adjacent to the entrance and can be isolated from the remainder of the school for night use.