Conserving, salvaging and repurposing existing structures and materials requires specialist skills that are getting rarer, says Clinton Cole, author of this expert article.

Kids spend around 11,000 hours in class before starting year 11, mostly in school buildings. School architecture is one way they learn about the built environment and the values and choices that shape it.

So, when structurally sound schools are razed to the ground to build something shiny and new, what’s the lesson they take away?

An example is the $40 million revamp of Darlington Primary School in inner Sydney.

Last year, it won World Building of the Year at the World Architectural Festival. Full disclosure: my kids go there.

But my beef isn’t personal. It’s with a government and a profession that talk up sustainability while trashing our built heritage.

No question the existing 1975 completed school was run down. The sawtooth-roofed brick-and-concrete structure had ageing finishes, ancient wiring and some water ingress issues.

All superficial issues. But at just 45 years old, it was deemed ‘end of life’ and demolished, sending to landfill 8,000 cubic metres of bricks, concrete and Australian hardwood.

And what did we get for this destruction?

Drumroll... another sawtooth-roofed brick-and-concrete structure in a similar footprint. New brick walls even replicated the old.

Yes, there’s rainwater harvesting, natural ventilation and light-filtering screens. But these ‘sustainability features’ can in no way offset all that waste – and this flawed approach has real consequences for the future our kids face.

Just quietly, the award-winning school is woefully under attended, enrolling just 146 students in 2024. It holds 500. No surprise: three years as a construction site with no outdoor play area halved the 250-strong student population.

It’s still a great school with fantastic teachers who create amazing learning for diverse kids. This is not about them. It’s about us, and the decisions we make as architects.

Why aren’t the top architectural firms investing in sustainable buildings? Because it’s easier to knock things down.

Conserving, salvaging and repurposing existing structures and materials requires specialist skills that are getting rarer. No one wants to be bothered with the messy work of documenting existing fabric. They just want to build new.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. In The Netherlands , a quiet revolution is preserving the ‘beauty of the ordinary’.

Young architects are collaborating to revitalise old schools with designs rich in history and innovative detail. And they’re saving more than heritage – the makeover of Nimeto, a 1960s Utrecht college, cost less than half the cost of a new building with a third the carbon footprint.

Why can’t we do this too?

Let’s adopt a thriftier, more creative mindset that celebrates the inherent value of not throwing stuff out and the beauty and heritage of what we have.

Let’s recycle and reuse materials.

Let’s take a school in all its history and specificity and bend our design minds to how to remake it for a new generation of kids – without knocking it down.

Can we say no to the obsession with shiny and new, and the culture of waste that comes with it?

Let’s show our kids we care about what buildings teach them – and the planet they’ll inherit.

Clinton Cole is director at CplusC Architects + Builders, a heritage-forward Sydney firm with 20+ years leading sustainable design and construction.

Image: Darlington Public School / Brett Boardman

Architecture News & Editorial Desk

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