Jubilee School

Mark Dudek

Description

Located in a deprived inner city area in southwest London this community primary school sets out to establish an enclosed and protective children’s world using an elegant contemporary architectural style. The scheme is predicated on partial access for community use during evenings and weekends together with a daycare/crèche facility, areas for profoundly deaf children to encourage their integration into mainstream school as well as the statutory infant and junior school classrooms. Here there is both a desire to make a building which is functionally complex to reflect the complexities of the brief, with shared uses interwoven into the planning, and at the same time the need to maintain security and functionality in its everyday school uses.

The public face of the building is at first sight austere. From the street it is a box-like high structure, handsomely finished predominantly in white render; this is an architectural language which is not to everyone’s taste. ‘It looks more like a supermarket than a school’ was one comment we heard when visiting, ‘It’s ugly’ was another. Certainly the scale of the entrance block is unlike most other primary schools. It is bulky and uncompromising in its external appearance dominating the streetscape. However, one of the advantages of this approach can be seen inside. On entering through a closely monitored entrance threshold, you are welcomed by a voluminous double-height foyer, an impressive public space that seems to welcome visitors, a statement perhaps of the school’s intention to be right at the heart of the community. This is a two-storey building, which is unusual for a primary. However, it ensures that all required accommodation is incorporated without losing too much outside play space. In addition this creates an imposing statement about the civic dimension of school attendance. The main entrance provides access into all parts of the school. On the lower ground floor there are reception and infant classes with the nursery and crèche (including its own nursery playground and separate early years courtyard) within the main east-west wing of accommodation. Access to the playground is on this lower ground floor for young children and infants. The site slopes significantly up from north to south. The architects have utilised this feature to create an enhanced sense of enclosure with the main playground dug into the slope and hard landscaping enclosing the south side without over-shadowing the space.

The building itself forms a U shape with functions, which have potential for community use such as the library and main hall (with attached kitchen), on the first, or raised ground floor wing of accommodation, which is at the same level as the natural site level at the southern end of the boundary. A connecting terrace extends the external areas around the hall out along the main road and gives the upper ground floor a sense of space, with a strong inside outside dimension. On sunny days large door/windows can be thrown open, tables and chairs can be taken out onto the terrace giving views into the street below. Enclosing the playground on the west side is, at ground floor, the SEN wing. Above it is a similar terrace feature connecting first floor classrooms to the street and staff car parking on the southern side of the site.

Connecting the two east-west wings is the main junior school block of accommodation with a corridor link, which is broad and generous. It is space which has been ‘borrowed’ from the lower level circulation areas which are consequently partly external. However, the benefit of this strategy is that the upper level circulation is far more usable. There are cloakrooms and especially useful break-out spaces, which act as small group rooms, complementing classroom functions. Access to the music, art and food technology rooms complete this tight urban jig-saw, which manages to be both ordered and legible as a plan, yet at the same time endlessly stimulating for the users. Like a mini walled city, children get constantly varying spatial perspectives as they move around the building. The junior school gives a sense of the privileges of age, as pupils are promoted to the upper level classrooms, each with its own south-facing balcony overlooking the playground.

From the outset, there was a wish to invest the new school with a strong and distinctive identity. This has partly been achieved by the use of graphic design to create a corporate image type logo, which is embossed on the entrance wall, on pupil kit bags and on all of the school’s stationery. It feels integral to the school itself. With the use of colour to highlight the vertical reveals on either side of the balconies and colourful playground graphics, there is a strong theme running throughout the building. Clearly there has been a careful control exerted between the balance of white render used to express the main structure and applied decorative features. Display boards are integral to the overall design, with children’s art being displayed only where it is appropriate to the overall aesthetic. In this respect, the building is something of a statement about the architect’s strongly held views on education and the power of architecture to raise aspirations and encourage learning through the careful control of the environment. It is slightly doctrinaire at times, yet it must surely give order to the chaotic lives of some families who will use the building.