It’s been a busy month in the world of school design. Amid the financial uncertainty, a number of key annual industry events took place during the month, including the BCSE Industry Awards – a great evening with a range of inspirational speakers. You can see a full list of the winners here and we’ll be featuring specific projects in the coming months in a bit more detail on the site.
National School Environments Week (18 – 25 June) started with an eclectic mix of events, seminars and networking opportunities – from a fantastic House of Commons launch event with speakers including the outgoing chair of the education select committee Barry Sheerman MP and Micael Sammon. To a seminar on the ‘Architecture of the Mind’ – looking at design issues for special educational needs, health and well being and mental health with great inputs from Georgia Burt and Martha McSweeney from Nightingale Associates - the latter who had worked on projects as diverse as secure units in Northern Ireland and Broadmoor! We also ran a UK-Dutch school design symposium at the Dutch Embassy which was a sprint like event through innovative school design ideas from the Netherlands from 6 leading architect firms – more on that to follow.
Whilst we were still awaiting news on what budgetary cuts we could expect from the new government (our response to the emegency budget is here) we turned our attention to school refurbishment. On the 21st June, we teamed up with Scott Brownrigg and Davis Langdon to publish our ‘Rethinking Schools Capital Investment – the New 3Rs? Refresh, Refurb, Reuse?’ report in full on the Centre for School Design website.
We chose this moment to focus on a stunning example of school refurbishment – Ifield School in Gravesend – a great illustration of how a special school can be updated and refreshed through thoughtful and inclusive design. We also featured a number of other special schools as well earlier in the month, creating a gallery of great design examples.
The ‘New 3Rs’ launch event itself drew out a few interesting lessons from history. In particular, Michael Oliff from Scott Brownrigg described the genesis of education buildings from Victorian times to the present and identified trends that could show us the way forward, in a time where budgets are restricted.
“Board schools showed an economy of design matched with high value placed on natural light and a mixture of home, instruction and project spaces, which mirror current day designs. In the 1920s, there was a movement towards ‘Open air’ schools which emphasised the outdoor environment as a key element to teaching and learning, at little cost, and in post war Britain modular and off site solutions were found to build and upgrade schools en masse to deliver system wide education change and cater for an age of austerity.”
Finally we looked at a great example of sustainability in schools – Bowbridge Primary School in Notts and reviewed the award-winning approach to whole-school technology at Forest Hill School in London.
Related posts: