18 EDUCATION
Ground floor plan showing the linear arrangement dictated by the ridge-top position
Informal teaching areas spill out into the main circulation space
A large porte-cochere both shades the lower spaces and provides some protected external space. Above this is the library, the most colourful part of the building with bright red cladding. Protruding above its large south facing window is a triangular brise soleil, meeting at a point to be supported by a steel upright, well beyond the building’s curtilage and announcing to all that here is the school, and this is the way in. Some additional pizzazz comes from an open-air amphitheatre in front of the entrance. ‘The playground can spill down into this amphitheatre,’ Moore explained.
The other aspect that immediately strikes the visitor is the generous width of the toplit circulation spaces. ‘It was designed on a seven- five – seven metre grid,’ Moore explained, with the 5m being the width of the circulation spaces. This was not mere open- handed generosity, however, but a vital part of the teaching strategy. The idea was that every class should have a kind of breakout space into the circulation area. These informal teaching spaces are only demarcated from the rest of the circulation area by the flooring that they use – the same material as the classroom to which they ‘belong’. Evidently the acoustic standards that prevail in classrooms have to be forgone here but the school felt it was vital to have this kind of informal teaching area, and was prepared to write it in as a fundamental element of the brief.
The classrooms themselves are relatively conventional, although every one has an interactive whiteboard. And although the floor area and shape are fairly conventional, classes are taller than usual – 3m rather than 2.7. This, said Moore, made it possible to ventilate them naturally, despite the fact that ventilation is only from one side.
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