New Primary School
Client: Bouygues UK
Status: Design Concept Proposal 2012
This new Primary School sits next to a main traffic interchange in East London. Our proposal responds to the busy, urban setting by wrapping the new building around a protected courtyard garden. The garden creates a focus for the school, making it easy to find your way around and provides a sheltered and secure space to play and learn.
Teaching spaces look into the garden with circulation corridors around the perimeter that act as a buffer to the busy surrounding roads. Large areas of glazing blur the boundaries between indoors and outdoors and overhanging eaves give a sheltered outdoor space and allow windows to remain open even when it’s raining. Chimneys encourage natural cross ventilation and make a visual reference to the adjacent Victorian school building.
The new building sits within the local Regeneration Masterplan and it responds to the surrounding higher buildings with high outer walls that taper to a lower level around the garden, helping to bring sunlight into the garden and classrooms and creating a scale appropriate for a primary school.
