Renderings of a modern, four-storey elementary school rising beside Hinge Park in Vancouver offers a glimpse of what the long-awaited Olympic Village school is going to look like.

McFarland Marceau Architects and the Vancouver school board have submitted a development permit application for the new school, two months after Vancouver city council gave them the green light to build a four-storey building at the site instead of the originally proposed three storeys.

The building, at just under 60,000 square feet, is meant to accommodate 630 students, 26 classrooms, a library, gym, multipurpose rooms, a rooftop area and 60 before-and-after school child-care spaces. It will be located on Columbia Street, north of Hinge Park and south of the seawall.

“The design celebrates the history of the site as part of traditional local nations territory,” said McFarland Marceau Architects in its submission. “The building will be welcoming, playful and expressive of its function as a school and community amenity.”

The main entrance faces north toward the False Creek waterfront, with silver metal panels on the facade that evoke the surface of water, meant to honour the First Nations who first lived on the land.

The gym and three multipurpose rooms will be on the ground floor for easy access to the community, which can use the spaces for sports or community events, while classrooms and academic spaces will be on the upper three floors.

The exterior ground floor design is meant to come across as a “pavilion” in the park, with a wraparound porch and several built-in seating areas to promote socializing and create a welcoming space. The rooftop area is designed to be “highly transparent” with steel fencing enclosing the space, slightly set back from the roof’s edge.

Four accessible parking spaces and two service parking spaces are proposed on the south side of the building, but no other parking spaces. There are six curbside spots along Columbia Street designated as pickup and drop-off points.