Places for Learning 3 3 Places This book is a fascinating overview of the many issues we are grappling with as we strive to create great schools. FCBS as a practice and as one of the Founding Members of the for British Council of School Environments is in a good position to provide thoughtful and useful commentary as to the changing nature and role of that place we call ‘school’. As the world Schools began with a man seems to move ever faster there is even more of a need to Learning create spaces that matter, uplift the spirit and allow our young people to enjoy thriving childhoods. under a tree who did not Our learning environments have suffered decades of under- Together, we can grow our schools into places of welcome investment. Lack of consistent funding not only damaged our for pupils and community, world class working environments know he was a teacher, infrastructure; but also our confidence in the need to create for our teachers and spaces that encourage not inhibit meaningful and special places for our children. Whilst we learning. Schools that respect our pupils, their communities sharing his realisation with a watched home ‘makeover’ shows on the TV, our teachers and the environment. And FCBS does just that. became expert at ‘make do’ and ‘patch and mend’. Now, few others who did not know new and not-so-new Governments throughout the world are Ty Goddard attaching an importance to education and school investment CEO, British Council of School Environments they were students that we have not seen for generations. www.bcse.uk.net As we face challenges on a global scale, wise leaders see Louis I Kahn investment not only as a moral cause but as a stimulus to industry and communities. 5 Rebuilding our schools The schools programmes in the 50s and 60s We are demanding more from our buildings. At the heart of educational thinking however is introduced both the social and technological Over the last five years , for instance, we have a timeless quality that a sense of individuality and aspects of European modernism to British added almost 10% to the cost of a school to make community are both sacrosanct. Both need to be architecture and society. The impact of the it work better acoustically. We are about to do the nurtured in order to overcome the social problems revolutionary change that this brought about is same in a very challenging attempt to produce that exist now to an even greater extent than difficult for us to recognise now. It was delivered carbon neutral schools by 2016. they did two generations ago. Both are nurtured through very powerful Local Authorities many Fifty years ago secondary schools were clearly by creating spaces that can help contemplation of whom were themselves at the forefront of organised around a hierarchy of subject areas: and creativity, where every child can enjoy the changing theories of education. They ran teacher academic fiefdoms which produced segregated privacy of his or her own world as well as being training colleges, architectural offices and had education. Now they are more likely to be part of a larger social community. The nature their own advisory departments. The buildings organised around a series of smaller “schools and range of spaces that we design is often they produced were built very quickly and cheaply within schools” creating smaller units of pastoral the easiest bit. It is those “spaces in between”, and by and large did not stand the test of time. care, often organised as vertical slices through the adding a richness of experience to our day to day ages rather than horizontal year groups. lives which we frequently take for granted, that We have now become aware of the Departmental structures led to the relatively provide the greatest architectural challenge. In possibility of arranging the entire human expensive fit-out and equipment of science and our best new school buildings it is the enjoyment technology laboratories; the balance has now of the in between space that brings delight to the environment as a work of art, for a switched to much more expenditure on ICT. The architectural experience. teaching machine designed to maximise former tended to create specialisation, the latter But these thoughts have been with us for democratisation of learning skills. Sir Jim Rose’s some time. It was 50 years ago that Robert perception and to make everyday report of 2008 reinforced the move to cross Oppenheimer, the nuclear physicist and founder of learning a process of discovery. curricular education. Class sizes were always San Francisco’s “Exploratorium”, wrote: “We have based around units of 30, now more adventurous now become aware of the possibility of arranging Robert Oppenheimer schools are teaching in cohorts of anything from 5 the entire human environment as a work of art, to 120 and the very best are coming to grips with for a teaching machine designed to maximise Two generations on, with the powers of Local a personalised learning agenda for each individual perception and to make everyday learning a Authorities reduced by Thatcherism, the rebuilding child. So spaces inevitably have to be both flexible process of discovery.” programme has been handed over to public/ and adaptable, but not without character and a private partnerships who have injected a new sense of community identity. This has led to a Peter Clegg approach into both the design and procurement slightly worrying focus on the atrium [email protected] of schools. Some are struggling, but the best at the heart of the school. Intelligently designed this have produced a new and visionary approach that can be genuine multi-purpose space, somewhere is responding to changes in both the regulatory where the school begins to have a sense of its framework for buildings and the changes in own identity. Poorly designed it can be noisy, pedagogy that are emerging. chaotic and disruptive. Left: Northampton Academy 7 A clear diagram is the key to creating a coherent and legible school environment. A well-planned town has its landmarks, squares and streets: the same applies at a micro-scale in a school Every School is Unique At FCBS we have developed school organisational diagrams which we have categorised as the Street, the Courtyard, the Atrium, the Campus and the Compact School. The Street has become an effective device for linking the components of a school in a linear fashion. Its application can range from an open space along which functions are arranged in a straight line, to a fully enclosed grand circulation route forming the spine to a single building. This diagram reaches an advanced level of sophistication with our work at City Academy, Bristol. A number of architectural “events” occur along this street, starting with the main entrance, the hall, then a series of smaller double-height spaces around which classrooms are focused. Along the route, views and links into courtyard spaces are provided. The Courtyard is a well tested solution to creating a controlled and secure external space. It can be either fully enclosed or open to one side. At Northampton Academy the courtyard was developed as an informal space. One of the key ideas was to encircle the courtyard at first floor level Left: with a fully enclosed route, which in turn creates a cloister at ground floor Compact school Street Paddington Academy level. Between the main building blocks, the cloister allows uninterrupted City Academy, Bristol 9 views over the surrounding landscape while site along with a public library, a theatre and maintaining a secure domain. Hereford community sports facilities. Academy provides a more condensed and The Compact school grows out of tight curvilinear version of this pattern. financial and spatial contraints. Plots which Organisational The Atrium diagram is exemplified by need to be entirely occupied by a building patterns emerge from the secondary school at St Mary Magdalene have only one way to go, and that is upwards. Academy in Islington. This all-through school In these cases, decks can be created and site constraints, our illustrates our interest in providing internal roofs colonised with play spaces. At the City reactions to the brief and spaces which have their own sense of identity, Academies in Paddington and Chelsea we have while still benefitting from a common culture. explored the use of open roof gardens as study/ the pedagogical aims of Many of these spaces hinge around the central break-out spaces which supplement the very the school atrium, a cube in form, within which sits a limited site area. learning resource centre. Organisational patterns emerge from site The Campus is a common organisational constraints and our reactions to the brief system for surburban schools with large and the pedagogical aims of the school. We site areas. In this arrangement, different continue to learn from a growing library of components can be gathered together as an organisational patterns but ultimately every identifiably single entity, but controlled and school - like every child - is unique. separated effectively. Estover Community College in Plymouth is an example of this Simon Doody approach, where a primary, a secondary and [email protected] a special school are being built on the same Courtyard Northampton Academy. Linked pavilions around a central courtyard which provides a social focus for the school community. Atrium St Mary Magdalene Compact school Courtyard Hereford Academy 11 vv FCBS school organisational diagrams 07 Atrium 01 Exemplar School Through School 04 06 St Mary Magdalene