Catering Facilities

Standard school designs or bespoke solutions – Is there a third way?

Ian Wilson suggests a design solution which provides all the benefits of repetition and standardisation but where each school can respond differently to prescribed programmes and accommodate their own site constraints.

The Building Schools for the Future (BSF) programme ambitiously set out in 2003 to ’ transform education’ through the replacement of every secondary school in the country by 2020 with learning environments which reflected the new ways of teaching.

The initial roll-out estimate of £45 billion quickly escalated to £55 billion and the completion date moved to 2023. By 2010, with only 8 per cent of the planned renewal started, the new government cancelled the programme amidst recriminations and controversy over profligacy, bureaucracy and lack of focus. But in the ensuing post-mortem, many of the positive aspects were overlooked.  The James Review, whilst acknowledging the need for new schools, concluded that there was ‘little evidence that a school which goes beyond fit for purpose has the potential to drive educational transformation’.

This was a convenient justification for the new administration to cut budgets and ‘review’ space standards. Michael Gove reinforced the government’s priorities in his ‘no award-winning architecture here’ speech, fundamentally misunderstanding the issue. This is exactly what the sector needs: good design matched with intelligent, cost effective construction. 

The Education Funding Agency (EFA) - set its stall out by publishing the Baseline Designs. These were a ‘deemed to satisfy’ set of templates which demonstrated that it was possible to design a fit for purpose school at a lower cost. Whilst important to prevent inadequate school designs, they set the bar at a low level in terms of ambition and quality.

What is a fit for purpose school?  How do we recognise a good design?

In 2000 years, architects have failed to improve on Vitruvius’ definition of ‘Commodity, Firmness and Delight’ in his book ‘De Architectura’, ie: a building that is functional, well- built and feels good.

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