ABSTRACT
The architects describe this as a building where the rooms are positioned logically ‘where they ought to be’.
However, the overall effect is much greater than this modest statement suggests. The entrance is on the south side, set back from the busy road. It comprises a grand flight of stairs which elevate you immediately to the raised ground floor, a sort of ‘piano nobile’ where the main communal spaces are located. From here you can either go down, via a range of open staircases, to the ground or basement levels, containing a sports hall, music and drama rooms and the library; or up to conventional suites of classrooms and the rooftop art studio with viewing gallery providing vistas across the city.
Entering through and into the building, a passageway carries the visitor all the way along its 150 metre length. Ground floor service level with cafeteria (c) and classrooms (z). https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/figcs11_4_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Raised ground floor plan with office (a), meeting room (b), music room (c), and school hall/public meeting area (d) beneath glazed roof and main entrance (e). https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/figcs11_5_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> First floor plan with three blocks of four classrooms. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/figcs11_6_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Second floor plan, classrooms and art studio. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/figcs11_7_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> South and east elevation. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/figcs11_8_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Section through glazed entrance hall. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/figcs11_9_B.tif" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> Exterior view of glazed roof balancing precariously on pin joints from the main frame (compare with plate 14). https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/figcs11_10_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> The main courtyard façade, The Speech and Learning Centre, Christopher Place, London. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_1_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Troughton and McAslam. Photo: © Peter Cook.) Exterior view of Seabird Island School showing the rich and powerful form which appears to be in a harmonious relationship to its physical setting. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_2_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Patkau Associates. Photo:© James Dow.) Exterior view from the woods of Strawberry Vale School. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_3_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Patkau Associates. Photo: © James Dow.) Typical classroom interior, Strawberry Vale School. The adjacent classroom block and the rocky outcrop are framed by this dramatic corner window, which forms a cosy reading corner. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_4_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Patkau Associates. Photo:© James Dow.) Access ramp and canopy to the new nursery unit, Westborough Primary School, Westcliff-on-Sea. The architects deal with entrance as a critical symbolic and functional threshold between existing and new parts in all their school buildings. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_5_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Cottrell & Vermeulen Architecture. Photo: © Paul Ratigan Photo/Graphics Ltd.) Resources area with coordinated furniture, Woodlea Primary School, Bordon, Hampshire. The level of transparency through the interior varies between closed classrooms and more communal group and circulation areas. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_6_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Nev Churcher, Hampshire County Architects. Photo: © Tony Weller/The Builder Group Library.) Despite the post-modernist form and neutral materials, a human scale is retained at the Anne Frank School, Papendrecht, The Netherlands. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_7_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Photo: © Architectuurstudio Herman Hertzberger.) The external form is created by a complex geometric relationship between the plan and the vertical circulationjhe Bombardon School, Almere, The Netherlands. Details of the fenestration relate quite precisely to the human child-sized scale of its users, in a modern industrial aesthetic. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_8_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_9_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Photo: © Architectuurstudio Herman Hertzberger.) Resource and library area with vivid zebra skin decorations, Pokesdown Primary School, Bournemouth. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_10_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Milton Forman. Photo: © Charlotte Wood.) Interior of a classroom in use, Ranelagh Multi-Denominational School, Dublin. O'Donnell and Tuomey. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_11_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Photo: © Dennis Gilbert VIEW 14 The Dover Centre, 109 Bartholomew Rd, London NW5 2JB. 020 7284 2928.) Vibrant decorative tiles wrap round the external curved staircase wall embedded in the city block, Little Village Academy, Chicago, Illinois. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_12_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Ross, Barney and Jankowski Architects. Photo: Steve Hall © Hedrich Blessing.) The staircase contains a big red sundial which has been adopted as the key motif for the new school, Little Village Academy, Chicago, Illinois. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_13_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (Ross, Barney and Jankowski Architects. Photo: Steve Hall © Hedrich Blessing.) Glazed entrance hall with main staircase, dramatically structured to reflect the uneasy geometry of the building's plan, Saint Benno Catholic Secondary School, Dresden. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/pla1_14_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> (© Behnisch & Behnisch.)
183One is enclosed in an atmosphere of varying modulated light, a route which naturally leads you up towards the glazed roof. Roughly at the centre of the plan is an enclosed winter garden, with angled fenestration, staircases and galleries pitched and skewed to create a dynamic space full of warmth and light. This has become an important social focus for the building, either for children to ‘hang-out’ in during the day, or an evening forum for concerts and other performances, connecting the school into the patterns of the local community. The interior of the chapel with dramatic blue clerestory glazing filling the space with calming blue light. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/figcs11_11_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
In order to reduce the impression of length, the architects have introduced angles into the planning of the solid classroom blocks. The anti-orthogonal organization deliberately subverts the ordered linearity of the housing blocks on the opposite side of Pestalozzi Street, creating a more humane almost organic architectural form which fits its context in scale terms, yet shouts out how special it is in architectural terms. Here is an architecture of schools which is uninhibited about how special it can feel to be in education. Every vista within this internalized circulation world provides a context for social interaction, whereas classrooms are largely conventional enclosed spaces for formal learning.
The building unfolds like an exotic plant, enclosed in thick ochre-rendered walls towards the east, opening up to the west with explosions of dynamic form, individual components merging together into a coherent architectural composition. At ground, first and second floor level, decks and staircases project out like fingers exploring the cultured formal landscape around the edges of the site, an interface between public and private life. The architectural response to its context enhances the life and institutions of this damaged urban landscape. Elevation from the east presenting a more formal closed face to the main street in the form of white rendered walls punctuated by window bays and staircase openings. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/figcs11_12a_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/> The main entrance elevation from the south which begins to open up, hinting at the spatial gymnastics to come inside. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780080499291/f70b01ec-99da-4e86-a882-bbb9f643b2de/content/figcs11_12b_C.jpg" xmlns:xlink="https://www.w3.org/1999/xlink"/>
