Billed as the largest project ever undertaken by the Ministry of Education, and tasked with changing the way education is delivered to the Marlborough region, this project carried huge expectations and aspirations from the Ministry, iwi, the local community, and the schools. 

This large complex project involved the master planning, design and documentation for the colocation of Marlborough Boys College and Marlborough Girls College onto a single site in Blenheim.

SRA were part of the consortium led by Naylor Love who worked intensively with the schools and local iwi over a period of two years to unpick the tangled jigsaw puzzle of how to keep three campuses’ operating while building two new schools on the existing Marlborough Girls’ College site, while pushing educational pedagogy forward and incorporating the very latest educational thinking.

The design was tasked to be as sustainable as practical while also supporting the local economy. The cultural narrative, and values gifted to the project by Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Toa, Rangitane, and Ngāti Kuia, alongside the Tikanga, have been embedded into the layout and design.

The hope for this project went beyond the local, it was also seen as a key to opening further business development in the region.

In 2024 after a review of Ministry of Education Budgets across the whole country, it was decided to reduce the overall scope of this project and a re-evaluation is currently underway.

A joint effort between SRA Architects, Brewer Davidson Architects and TOA Architects this project would have been an exemplar for how to deliver new educational facilities in the 21st century and we look forward to taking the profound learnings from this project forward into the future.