Description

The need for new primary school facilities at Kingsmead was a result of new housing developments in the area. The requirement was to create a 150 place, seven classroom school with potential for future ex­pansion. Cheshire County Council promoted the design intention to create a school, which would be an exemplar of sustainable design and construction. The building’s orientation on the site, the selection of natural materials, the integration of natural ventilation and numerous other details add to its overall sustainability ethos. For example, by locating the school building close to the existing site entrance, and creating a curved building form, the inside is neatly enclosed to create a clear ‘front and back’.

This simple planning move reduces the length of the service road leaving the majority of the site to playing fields. The building has a strong, visible timber structure, which adds interest to the internal spaces and allows direct contact with this natural material appropriate on this semi-rural location. The structural ‘glulam’ frame allows for flexible room forms, so that classrooms can be configured in a number of different ways. The Western Red Cedar cladding provides a soft, warm external appearance. The form of the roof is one of its most distinctive features and not only aids natural ventilation but also allows rainwater to be harvested for flushing toilets and maintaining the landscape in drought conditions. The predominantly north-facing classrooms ensure consistent soft direct lighting. Each classroom has a ‘winter garden’, which provides an alternative space to the main teaching zone. In addition there are a number of support spaces and small group rooms for special needs teaching.

Since it opened in July 2004, the staff at Kingsmead School have been working with the aid of the new building on changes and improvements to their teaching methods, specifically integrating environmental awareness into the curriculum. Plans include everything from use of the building’s energy-in-use data to support maths teaching, to class gardens for pupils to learn about issues such as ‘food miles’, while they grow their own food and develop a green ‘travel to school’ scheme to encourage parents to leave their cars at home. Kingsmead’s ‘whole school’ approach where educational, design and construction practice is being re-thought, promises to be a wonderful place to learn. Colour is used sparingly yet with real sensitivity to its sensory qualities, so for example cool greens and blues are used in activity spaces such as circulation spaces, whilst warm reds and orange colours are used in classroom areas where students are more static.

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Originally published in: Mark Dudek, Schools and Kindergartens: A Design Manual, Birkhäuser, 2015.