Description

At Christ’s College, a 700-pupil newly built secondary school completed in 2009, three large atrium-type spaces have been incorporated within the school building; two with dedicated uses (a sports hall and a theatre) and a third space, a multi-purpose atrium situated at the heart of the building. Every morning the school’s 700 pupils arrive in this space, pause and view the day’s announcements on television screens before dispersing to one of the surrounding classrooms via the circulation spaces that wrap the atrium. In the meantime staff might be wheeling out two trampolines from a nearby store into the atrium for a PE lesson that can be overlooked by accidental spectators passing along one of the corridors above. By lunchtime the space will have seen yet another transformation; each day the kitchen servery at one end of the atrium opens up and the atrium is furnished with a series of long white mobile canteen tables. And the activity does not stop at the end of the school day; during out of school hours the atrium along with the rest of the school is available for hire for conferences, local sports practices and public events.

It is easy to see that the atrium is the most vibrant space in Christ’s College, but what makes it so? Firstly, the spatial planning is very well-considered. On a practical level, storage and circulation are key to making a space like this work; if it is too difficult to set up a new activity in the space staff will not use it. Acoustics and lighting are also critical especially in a location internalised within the plan. The walls and ceiling of the atrium are lined in narrow timber cladding which serves to absorb sound, but also sets this space apart from other parts of the school which are largely finished in fair-faced blockwork and concrete. Sculptural skylights draw daylight down into the space, but also into the circulation zones that surround it whilst elongated pendant lights accentuate the height and drama of the space. The importance of this space within the school is further strengthened by its relationship to the school chapel, a double-height space sitting above one end of the atrium, an ever-present reminder of the school’s Christian roots right at the centre of the school.

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Originally published in: Prue Chiles (ed.), Leo Care, Howard Evans, Anna Holder, Claire Kemp, Building Schools: Key Issues for Contemporary Design, Birkhäuser, 2015.