ST MATTHEW ACADEMY
ARCHITECTUREPLB HAS MADE A CALM AND FITTING COUNTERPOINT TO THE ACADEMY’S AMBITIONS
Left_ Young building users enjoying the architecture
and fair-face concrete ceilings, enlivened by galvanised steel and plywood balustrades, and strategically placed panels of colour. The students’ work is extensively displayed, but in a far more restrained manner than is usually the case in such educational environments. As befits its business ethos, the academy all feels remarkably orderly, but not oppressively so, and this is reflected in the students’ behaviour: never can I recall having seen so many doors politely opened. The architectural set-piece is the
central hall. Three storeys high and made to feel substantially larger by the inclusion of a mezzanine floor that acts as an open work area and a cross-circulation link, the hall is visually permeable at ground level and through narrow vertical slits of glass to each side. Above the glazing, the west-facing wall and ceiling are lined with perforated ply acoustic panels that float, giving the impression of a planar baldacchino, above the timber-boarded floor, evoking the space’s dual role as meeting hall and place of worship. Whereas the ‘modern’ crucifixes discreetly displayed in the classrooms may strike many non-believers as
slightly awkward visually, here the feeling is entirely contemporary – reminiscent, perhaps, of a Scandinavian church. Three years on, the school’s educational success has become uneasily apparent with the arrival of temporary classrooms along the site’s northern edge. The sports hall is now being converted into additional classrooms and the head has opted to glaze the originally open shared spaces. The effect, however, is less grievous than might be expected and the visual openness remains. The only deviation from the orthogonal in plan or section is the acoustically necessary skewing of walls in the music suite: this is a building conspicuously devoid of overtly ‘clever’ architectural moves, still less gestures. What ArchitecturePLB has made is a calm and fitting counterpoint to the academy’s educational ambitions, which feels immensely civilised, a thoroughly modern ‘everyday’ building for everyday activities. After almost a century of modern architecture, this type ought to be a norm which is available to all in a wealthy, democratic society, but it still feels very special.
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