Building Space: How A City-Centre Primary School Is Setting A New Design Blueprint

Castleward Primary School is an innovative new primary school set to be built in the heart of Derby’s city centre. Craig Taylor, associate director of Lungfish Architects, describes the challenges posed by the school’s limited site size and how they used the restrictions as a catalyst for creativity.

The UK’s towns and cities are bursting at the seams. Indeed, more than a million people in rented homes are suffering overcrowding as city centres continue to swell in size. So naturally, the question of exactly where these people – especially families – will live, learn and grow is high on the agenda for councils across the nation.

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      string(6067) "Learning Spaces  Volume 1:1  Volume 1:1  Learning SpacesCase studywww.teachingtimes.comCase studywww.teachingtimes.comSandal Magna Community Primary School inWakefield is anticipated to be one of the mostcarbon efficient schools in the UK. In Septemberit opened its doors for the first time to pupils, staffand the wider community. As a practice it’s a majormilestone for us – it’s our first completed schoolbuilding and the end of a long but very rewardingprocess.The BriefIn January 2006 Wakefield Council commissionedSarah Wigglesworth Architects, in partnership withNPS Group, to design a replacement for the VictorianGothic Sandal Magna Primary School. The old schoolhad reached the end of its life, and the council haddecided that a new school should be built on thesame site. The new school had to accommodate 210pupils aged between 5-11 years alongside nurseryprovision, and needed to be capable of expansionto 315 pupils. The school also contains a communityroom for use by parents and local people for adulteducation and other purposes.Wakefield Council was keen to ensure that theschool provided not only a superb education formany years to come, they wanted a school to be highquality, signifying that this was a community wellworth investing in. Their vision for the new schoolwas to achieve a leading example of sustainabledesign, based around issues addressed in ourExemplar School Design for the DfES: functionality,sustainability, buildability, efficiency, aesthetics anddurability. Developing a sense of ownership amongdifferent user groups is central to SWA’s approachas an architecture practice, and we embarked on aseries of consultation meetings to involve a varietyof groups to understand what issues were key tothe design. The aim of this was to arrive at a series ofinnovative, sustainable and ultimately popular designdecisions. Over a period of time we held site visits andconsultation meetings with Wakefield Council, staff,parents, the local community and other stakeholders.The school themselves were fierce advocates fora new kind of school, one which could support thespecific needs of their pupils and their parents. TheHead, Julia Simpson, and her Deputy and GreenChampion Ann Smith, were particularly interestedin how the design could support the school indeveloping their sustainable curriculum, and inembedding ecological thinking into the daily routinesand management practices of the school throughactivities such as recycling, a walking bus, healthyeating programmes and physical exercise. So the newbuilding needed to provide good access to outdoorspaces, with lots of different spaces for outdoorlearning and play. The school wanted a building fullof wonder and challenge, so we developed ideasaround using the building as a teaching tool in its ownLivinghistoryThe replacement for Sandal Magna CommunityPrimary School is a flagship eco-school thatpays homage to its Victorian past. SarahWigglesworth explains.Learning Spaces  Volume 1:1  Volume 1:1  Learning SpacesCase studywww.teachingtimes.comCase studywww.teachingtimes.comright – visible services, fair faced materials, quality daylighting and calm,beautiful spaces designed for different modes of learning.As a result of the engagement with stakeholders we were able toestablish a set of key criteria which would inform the design of thenew school: ■ the importance of a new identity for the school with a positive streetpresence ■ maintaining a sense of history and memory ■ providing a welcoming building for students, parents and teachers ■ site security and robustness of materials ■ scale and relationship of the new building to its setting ■ flexibility of spaces within the new building ■ provision of a variety of play spaces ■ importance of a community space ■ importance of energy efficiency and sustainabilityOur engagement sessions continued throughout thedesign into the selection of furniture, interior andexterior finishes, equipment and external planting.We were extremely lucky to have a great project teamled by David Brown from Wakefield Council as well asan inspirational and driven head teacher.Response – the designThe school’s design takes its cue from thesurrounding vernacular architecture: the red-brickVictorian terraces of Sandal, an inner-city suburbof Wakefield. The school is laid out as three parallelsingle storey wings that reflect the street pattern,while the red brick of those terraces is also usedextensively throughout the school. Along the lengthof the teaching block, which echo the rooflines ofneighbouring houses, the natural ventilation stacksmark the classrooms at regular intervals, while, atthe centre of the site, the school is crowned by astriking new bell tower evoking the tall chimneysof Wakefield’s industrial heritage. Within the tower,the old school bell has been overhauled and rehungto provide the much-desired sense of history andmemory, a desire expressed during the consultationprocess.The overall design of the school is highlycontemporary. Teaching spaces are provided inthree sizes – standard class bases for 30 pupils, spacesfor 20 and small group rooms for individual or smallgroup tuition. There are teaching kitchens, a librarywith zig-zag windows and an ICT suite which can besubdivided for teaching smaller groups. Externallywe used a range of cladding materials such as rawtimber, weatherboarding and corrugated rainscreensto denote different uses within the school and toadd interest and texture to the angular geometriesof the building. Already, pupils enjoy the tactility oftheir new school:"
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Learning Spaces

Living history

22 Feb 2011

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      string(5733) "from the furniture!The pace of change is such that it is very, verydemanding, and a lot of people will be left behind,get lost or become misguided by the sheer rate atwhich change is happening and expectations areevolving. It is very hard, but it’s a good problem tohave because we are getting much better.I think that, as a sector today, we are deliveringsome fantastic buildings with some fantastictechnology and we really are truly enhancingthe learning experience. It’s hard and it is goingto take an awful lot of investment financially andindividually to make sure that we stay current, but it’sa good problem to have. It’s a much more excitingenvironment to be working in, I think, now than everbefore.TH And that’s a positive note to end on , Mat, thanksvery much for your time today, and we lookforward to seeing you at the event on 29th-30thMarch in London.MD Thanks very much, I look forward to it.https://nextgenlearning.iqpc.co.uk/agenda-mchttps://nextgenlearning.iqpc.co.uk/agenda-mc11 Volume Special Issue Learning SpacesShowcasewww.teachingtimes.com4 issues per year – OnlineLearning Spaces magazine looks at howschools are attempting to improve theirenvironments for learning. Using exciting casestudies of new and refurbished schools, itlooks at the most creative attempts to matchdesign with new developments in teachingand learning. A key mission of the magazineis to give school staff and pupils – the users– more say over design and development.There is a strong emphasis on maintenance,refurbishment and managing the PrimaryCapital programmes.Recent Learning Spaces articles haveincluded:• Learning to live with your new school• Changing Cultures by Changing Spaces• Building Projects – Heaven or Hell?• What do you want in your outdoor space?• Opportunities for Participation andInnovation – learning from Primary Schools.Learning SpacesPlease return to: Subscriptions, Teaching Times U205 The Jubilee Centre, 130 Pershore Street, Birmingham, B5 6NDNameJob TitleDelivery addressPost codeTel. no.*Email address (Mandatory for emailed bulletins)■ Official Order No.I enclose: ■ Cheque £ payable to Imaginative Minds.■ Credit Card (Please give card address if different to delivery address)Card name Card addressCard No.Start date Expiry date Isuue No Security NoSignaturePrint nameCall the Subscriptions Orderline 0121 224 7599 Fax back this form 0121 224 7598To subscribe to Learning Spaces fill details belowLearning Spaces e-magazine:Please tick boxPrimary £70 +VATSecondary £90 +VATBusiness/ Corporate £120 +VATIndividual £50 +VATFor Libraries, Universities & Trade orders, pleasetelephone 0121 224 7599 as different prices apply.12 Learning Spaces Volume Special IssueShowcasewww.teachingtimes.com Learn from the higher education sector’sleading experts:Keith LilleyDirector of Estates and Facilities ManagementUniversity of SheffieldMat Davies MCIOBOxford Saïd Estate Director, Said Business SchoolUniversity of OxfordMatt TarlingDirectorStride TreglownProf Mark BrownDirector of the National Institute for DigitalLearningDublin City UniversityIris PeetersEducational Developer, Faculty of ScienceKULeuvenMarij VeugelersExpert Learning Spaces Campus DevelopmentUniversity of Amsterdam/AmsterdamUniversity of Applied SciencesAlastair CreelmanE-Learning SpecialistLinnaeus UniversityMika SuutariHead of Learning Environment ServicesTurku University of Applied SciencesJulian GitshamPrincipalHassell See inside for the full list of speakersWeb www.learningspacesuk.com l Tel +44 (0) 207 036 1300 l Email enquire@iqpc.co.uk 1Main Conference: 29th – 30th March 2017 l Pre-Conference Workshops: 28th March 2017 l Location: London, UKImprove Learning & Teaching Outcomesby Linking Pedagogy, Spaces and TechnologyThe convergence of technology, pedagogy and space can leadto exciting models of campus interactions.Diana Oblinger, Former President, EduCauseg Improve student engagement, retention and academic results by adopting the uniqueapproaches leading universities across the world are using to re-imagine their learning spacesg Design and implement cost-effective, flexible and future-proofed spaces to ensure your learningenvironments can adapt to future demands and continue to deliver world class teachingg Select, integrate and utilise technology to drive innovation to optimise the learning process anddeliver on student expectations now and into the futureg Develop key metrics to monitor and measure performance of new learning spaces to identifyareas of improvement and justify the investmentg Collaborate effectively with all stakeholders throughout the entire project process to avoid cost blowouts, time delays and missing the briefJoin the UK’s most prestigious universities to discover how to:13 Volume Special Issue Learning SpacesShowcasewww.teachingtimes.comLearn from the higher education sector’sleading experts:Keith LilleyDirector of Estates and Facilities ManagementUniversity of SheffieldMat Davies MCIOBOxford Saïd Estate Director, Said Business SchoolUniversity of OxfordMatt TarlingDirectorStride TreglownProf Mark BrownDirector of the National Institute for DigitalLearningDublin City UniversityIris PeetersEducational Developer, Faculty of ScienceKULeuvenMarij VeugelersExpert Learning Spaces Campus DevelopmentUniversity of Amsterdam/AmsterdamUniversity of Applied SciencesAlastair CreelmanE-Learning SpecialistLinnaeus UniversityMika SuutariHead of Learning Environment ServicesTurku University of Applied SciencesJulian GitshamPrincipalHassell See inside for the full list of"
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Learning Spaces

The Seven Point Checklist For Successful Learning Spaces

13 Mar 2017

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      string(5919) "28 Learning Spaces  Volume 1:4Showcase – Primarywww.teachingtimes.comMeeting theschool placeschallengeSteve Loughe on how ARK Schools, London Boroughof Ealing and BAM have worked together to create abrand new primary school which delivers for its localcommunity.29 Volume 1:4  Learning SpacesShowcase – Primarywww.teachingtimes.comThe London Borough of Ealing isfacing a shortfall of 4,698 primaryplaces. Academy chains and FreeSchools are one of the ways thatlocal authorities, such as Ealing,are looking to fill this challenging gap. In thiscontext, the first cohort of 60 children willenter the gates of ARK Priory Primary Academythis September. It will reach its full capacityof 450 pupils in 2019 with 2 Forms of Entryfrom Reception to Year 6, and a 30 place fulltime equivalent Nursery, and is already over-subscribed.BAM Construction working together withBAM Design have delivered this brand newbuilding, carefully reflecting ARK Schools’ brief,within an 12 month build period.ARK Schools operate 27 academies inLondon, Birmingham Hastings and Portsmouth,and ARK Priory will be its eighth primary inLondon. The group, set up in 2004, is part of theinternational children’s charity ARK which runsa range of education and health programmesin the UK, southern Africa, India and EasternEurope. They are an experienced, informed andknowledgeable client with a clearly definedbrief.All ARK schools prioritise the same six keyprinciples:1. High expectations2. Excellent teaching3. Exemplary behaviour4. Depth before breadth5. More time for learning6. Knowing every childThe founding head of ARK Priory PrimaryAcademy, Jacqueline Steele, has already startedone outstanding primary from scratch for ARKbefore so knows what is involved.  She says that:“Creating a school from scratch is a fantasticopportunity for any head as it enables you toestablish how you want the school to run fromday one. We’ve been able to work with our staffto define and create a school culture that willhelp every child achieve their full potential. Ourpartnership with BAM has also been importantin enabling us to create the right environmentto support our educational ambitions.”30 Learning Spaces  Volume 1:4Showcase – Primarywww.teachingtimes.comARK’s brief for the school was to provide:A calm, nurturing environment;Easy access to external areas and shared facilities;Age appropriate facilities to support a range ofextra-curricular activities;Good quality FFE;And to maximise natural lighting.■■■■■The school required a hall at its heart that wouldbe used for a variety of timetabled lessons andperformances. They were looking for efficient andhealthy dining and kitchen facilities and specificallyrequested “no atria!”Outdoor space was to be carefully designed formaximum multifunctional use for play, teaching,and sport as well as providing direct access for 31 Volume 1:4  Learning SpacesShowcase – Primarywww.teachingtimes.comearly years provision and an attractive settingfor the school building, within a site that wassignificantly undersized compared to BuildingBulletin 99 guidelines.IT requirements focussed on flexibility andreliability while the brief for sustainabilityfocussed on low energy and low carbonoutcomes.ARK Priory Primary Academy will open on thesite of the former Priory First School and PrioryCommunity Centre in Acton Town Centre, WestLondon. The building occupies a tight triangularsite in an urban setting just off the noisy UxbridgeRoad with the challenge of an adjacent railwayembankment, overlooking from neighbouringproperties, rights of light issues and a Victorianschool house on the site, considered worthy oflocal townscape merit. 32 Learning Spaces  Volume 1:4Showcase – Primarywww.teachingtimes.comBAM were appointed as both the selectedcontractor and design team to design and buildthe new Academy via competition under theEducation Funding Agency Academies Framework.BAM’s initial design strategy, based on the ControlOption, was to retain part of the existing buildingson the front of the site and extend to the rear.However, the existing buildings did not provideefficient use of space, meaning a large proportionof the available site would be used up for buildings,which compromised external play and learningspaces.An alternative 100% new build scheme wasexplored and proved to provide far more efficientand adaptable accommodation to meet theimmediate and longer term needs of 21st centurypupils. Although the planning office would havepreferred to keep the existing street frontage, agood quality urban design new build solutionsatisfied their ambitions. The new primary schoolbuilding addresses exactly the same street frontageas the old, with a prominent, welcoming visitor’sentrance and separate pupils’ gateway “Portal” tocreate an equal sense of arrival.The contemporary design complements andenhances the existing streetscape, using a mixof traditional and modern materials and at anappropriate scale for a school while reflectingthe surrounding mix of Victorian and modernsurroundings. 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Learning Spaces

Meeting the school places challenge

30 Oct 2013

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      string(5793) "SpacesSustainabilitywww.teachingtimes.commake a big difference, so that we change our habitsand behaviour and tread more gently on the planet.What is Pop-Up?Pop-Up-Farm brings sustainability education intoschools and the wider community, both in the UK andoverseas.  It combines the basic elements of water,waste, energy, food and growing to demonstratedifferent ways people can change their lives to themutual benefit of communities and the planet.The heart of the Pop-Up farm is the Plotting Shed.This can be an existing physical structure, a real shedor any other building deemed suitable.  The otherelements of the Pop-Up farm will lead out from theshed.  In the shed will be cushions and bean-bags(or chairs), boards and chalk, paper and pens –Thepurpose of the plotting shed is to encourage peopleto share ideas, suggestions and thoughts. The seriesof images accompanying this article illustrate boththe concept of the Pop Up initiative.How does Pop-Up work?Pop-Up will focus on three key areas:Schools – primary and secondaryCommunities – churches,  town squares,supermarket car-parksInternational – Commonwealth countries, bothdeveloped and developing.SchoolsStarting with Burnley, Pop-Up is working inconjunction with Start (an initiative of The Princeof Wales to show people how simple steps can leadto a more sustainable future), The Prince’s Charities(especially BITC), the council and, of course, the 38primary schools of Burnley.  The focus of this primaryschool project is to educate children on the basicsof sustainability in a fun and engaging manner.  Asa key partner of Start, Asda will be at the heart of theproject supporting Pop-Up with sheds, water butts,tools and other inputs as required.CommunitiesStarting with Manchester, Pop-Up is planning to workin conjunction with the city council, to introduce aPop-Up presence in the heart of the city, focusingon the employment elements of sustainability byestablishing a commercially operating seasonalfarm, whilst demonstrating and educating peopleon how they can not only save money, but alsoenhance their lives by adopting a more sustainableapproach to life.InternationalStarting with Uganda, Pop-Up is working inconjunction with Seeds for Development (a charity■■■for providing people with the types of solutionsthat they require. In particular, they challenge themyth of sustainability and that industrialised viewof nature and people not mixing. In growing in theurban space, and establishing a new paradigm forthat growing and including learning as a centralfeature of the work in progress, we begin to see theprospect of a new form of urban life, based aroundday-to-day capabilities, not some utopian design buta curriculum for life, and of life.Schools in the vanguard of changeBy taking the environmentalism out of the urbanmix, the experimental projects are starting to getbeyond the implausibility of ‘nature as happy, greenand friendly’, to a simple practical relationship ofconvenience. This takes us out of the predictableframeworks through the integration of urban andrural by bringing a new form of learning to thetownscape. It has to be noted that this also has little todo with generating ‘local’ produce, which perpetuatesa particular form of market-trading promoting elitefoods, distinct from all other foods. Instead, bygrowing food inside city space experiments with theurban idea, it represents a way of responding to thefood security crisis, first symbolically, and perhaps ata later stage, as an embedded feature of the urbanlandscape and mindscape.That is why the potential gains of using schoolyardsas the new urban farm are so attractive, as theyconnect a number of important elements together.School is a point of contact for a community ofpeople. There is a shared interest in making thelearning context real and provocative and purposefulfor the participants involved. There is great interestin how we might ensure that school has relevanceto young people, and the existing fragmentation ofenterprise and education can be overcome as theproduce arising from the schemes can be developedcommercially, thereby enabling further projects to befunded without needing to be externally funded.A school of sustainabilitySo I think that the school of sustainability is nota school at all in the traditional sense. Instead itrepresents the attitude of sustainability in practice, away of providing a design through which communityfood security can being to become a feature of a newcurriculum for urban life. This would be a curriculumthat sees growing, and experimentation of growingin the urban setting, as part of a vast, urban open-source programme.To achieve this I have designed a project called‘Pop-Up- Farm’ to illustrate this school of sustainabilityin action. The basic idea is that Pop-Up challengesus in unexpected ways and in unexpected places,showing us how easy it is to make little changes that 14 Learning Spaces  Volume 1:2Sustainabilitywww.teachingtimes.comsupporting Ugandan farmers) in 4 schools, whichalso play an important role within their communities.Pop-Up will demonstrate basic farming techniquesto children and local farmers/residents and highlightthe importance of water harvesting, soil managementand creating viable community held businesses.SummaryIn his Reith Lectures of 1995, Cities for a small planet,Richard Rodgers presented some startling data thatillustrated the effect that the car had made to theurban designed space. ‘An efficient parking standardrequires twenty square meters for a single car. Evensupposing that only one in five"
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Learning Spaces

LS1.2_p08-p14_Sustainable minds sustainable schools

3 Feb 2012

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      string(387) "... shaped wartime prefab on the site andto build in its place a new building. We persuaded themthat reusing the existing building could provide themwith the space they needed within their limited budgetof around £500,000. A new building, necessarily moreexpensive, could not.We worked closely with the school and local ..."
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      string(5945) "pleasure has yet to be discovered and isone that has to be the right choice for many schools.Not all schools will have the money for new buildings,nor will they have budgets delivered in the right lumpsums at convenient times. These schools need richlyimagined design plans which are bold, pragmatic andvisionary – with the school community at the heart ofa collaborative process. The quality of communicationand degree of understanding between school andarchitect is the key.Luckily there is an army of small, well-respectedarchitectural practices in Britain who would love tobe involved. We have the right skills and are light onour feet. We are small because that is how we keepdirect contact with all our clients and control of ourprojects. Independently minded architects are notsimply service providers. Although they provide aquality of service that large practices cannot match,they have an architectural agenda too. They willsee the existing school environment as a positive � Century 21 Schools  Spring �006The PFI Experience  www.century21schools.com�www.century21schools.com   The PFI Experience Spring �006  Century 21 SchoolsWestborough Model of ‘Umbrella Plan’Westborough New EntranceWestborough – Inside the new classroom blockWestborough lunch box storageWestborough New EntranceSparkenhoe interiorOne example will show how the approach worked.The school wanted to break up the continuous swatheof asphalt playground into separate territories “owned”by different parts of the school community, whichincluded an outdoor classroom. A long ramp intothe playground was also needed to provide disabledaccess. The architects turned the potential awkwardnessof this ramp into a piece of oversized sinuous playfurniture which helps define the different areas of theplayground. They describe this as a demonstrationof how “apparently pragmatic problems can beimagined into to extend their scope to work towardsa more comprehensive understanding of the schoolenvironment.”Having seen the potential to blur the edgesbetween indoor and outdoor spaces, the school tookthe opportunity to create a more varied teachingenvironment. A new classroom block was constructedwith a ball screen placed away from the building,creating a covered, decked area – an intimate outdoorspace for teaching and socialising. On a smaller scale, aninventive solution was devised to address the storageof lunchboxes. An inexpensive external mesh locker,forming the north edge of the decked area, allowsidentification of lunchboxes, while also forming atranslucent and fun façade.South Camden Community SchoolThe second case study concerns South CamdenCommunity School near Kings Cross in London, whichoccupied a series of now unfashionable sixties buildings.They too have learned the benefits of establishing anoverarching masterplan to guide development. In 1997Gollifer and Langston, a young practice with no schoolexperience but a then half-finished glass museum inSunderland, were commissioned by the school and havenow completed four project phases from their originalmasterplan to create an impressive set of spaces witha truly extended life within the community.One benefit the school has identified in having amasterplan, is that they could respond quickly anddecisively when new government funding initiativescame on stream. In this way they were able to tackle theproblems of the large quad at the centre of the Schoolwith the help of Snug & Outdoor, a company of artistswho design innovative play environments. The quadwas underused and disliked because of its awkwardand unfriendly design. Snug & Outdoor engaged thepupils and staff in a creative process that lead to itscomplete re-design. For one week the quad was turnedinto an exciting and energized experimental spaceinvolving most of the pupils from all years. Using stagingplatforms, mirrors, large coloured picnic blankets, café-style tables and chairs they were able to change thelayout and character of the space and begin to imaginehow it could be improved. The ideas and observationsof pupils and staff generated through that project wereincorporated into Snug & Outdoor’s new design for thequad, which is now a popular and well used part of theschool. Year 8 pupils now say, “We can socialize and talkhere, it’s relaxable and peaceful “, and Rosemary Leek,the head teacher commented, “It was a bit hairy at timesbut it’s been worth it. This was real consultation and I’dsay to other schools ‘trust the process and go for it!’”Sparkenhoe Community PrimaryThe last case study is a building by my own practice,Ash Sakula Architects. It is a school and communitytheatre at Sparkenhoe Community Primary Schoolin Leicester. Our clients, Leicester City Council, weredetermined to demolish a ruinous former dole officehoused in a tee shaped wartime prefab on the site andto build in its place a new building. We persuaded themthat reusing the existing building could provide themwith the space they needed within their limited budgetof around £500,000. 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Learning Spaces

Transformation without demolition

25 Aug 2009

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