Emerging Trends in School Design

Last week a bunch of Cullinans keen beans attended ‘Shaping the Future: Spaces for Education’ talk at the Geological Society  - part of this season’s ‘Emerging Trends’ series by the Royal Academy.  The speakers were Philip Marsh (drMM), John Whiles (Jestico Whiles), and Simon Allford (AHMM).

In the current era of parent-led grass roots initiatives a wide spectrum of school types is cropping up from Free Schools to Academies and beyond.  The time is ripe to ask: how can school design attitudes evolve to meet these new challenges?

Simon Allford conveyed energy in his interrogation of the problem at hand, calling for designers to reconsider the brief for schools.  He argued that architects should ignore overly specific briefs and instead conceive schools as part of the city fabric, rather than allowing the design to be driven by a programme that changes as often as educational policy.  Allford’s plea for ‘highly bespoke yet inherently adaptable design’ cited the Uffizi Galleries in Florence as an example of a building which goes beyond its brief to form lasting public space.

View of the river Arno framed by the Uffizi Galleries in Florence, Piazzale degli Uffizi

Most of the evening covered well publicised past projects such as the Kingsdale Secondary School Sports Hall by drMM which, whilst admirable for its creative use of ETFE and glulam structure, can hardly be considered as an ‘emerging trend’ as it was completed ten years ago.

I left disappointed by the lack of emerging school design philosophies shown, but motivated to continue the debate on the subject (those of us who attended stayed behind for an animated discussion)!  Hopefully others had a similar reaction and will be inspired to join a more focused debate on design for the next generation of schools.  Overseas inspiration is easy to come by - for example, the climate-sensitive and cost-effective DPS Kindergarten School in Bangalore, conceived by architects Kholsa Associates as a prototype school for South India.

Terracotta jaalis and colourful corrugated sheets provide playful shading and a nod towards the vernacular architecture of the region, set within the rigorous framework of a modular concrete typology.  Natural ventilation, light and local materials harmonise in this project, which came top of the education category at the 2013 Inside Festival awards and is a delight to read about.  Could such an approach begin to answer the call for innovative ‘highly bespoke yet inherently adaptable design’ for schools and if so, what would the British equivalent be?

 

 

 

The central courtyard at the DPS Kindergarten