NEWS 5 INFANT SCHOOL


NVB Architects design inspiring infant school buildings in Swindon


NVB Architects have designed a building and outdoor spaces centred around learning for Royal Wootton Bassett Infant School in Swindon, Wiltshire.


The brief sought to replace life-expired buildings with a new teaching block, library, and play spaces for pupils aged four to seven. The school’s ethos, ‘Learning is Fun,’ informed the architects’ response to develop the idea that the buildings and landscape should provide a “practical, dynamic, and joyful backdrop to learning.” The site is steeply sloping from north to south and so the design developed as


ADF MAY 2023


two connected buildings accessed via an arrangement of bridges from the upper playground level. These bridges connect the main school, new classrooms and an elevated library reminiscent of a tree house.


The principal block is carefully crafted with two double pitched roofs running perpendicular to the sloping site creating a well-proportioned elevation to the high street while protecting the school boundary. The building houses four classrooms, cloakrooms, WCs and SEN support rooms.


The second building is a raised timber


library or ‘tree house’ with a sun deck reached via a jungle-like bridge with views over the landscape. The upper playground and timber library are reached from an access deck running the full length of the building, with views into the canopy of a grand existing oak tree. The practice’s architectural and landscape design expertise made use of the sloping land by integrating a soft landscaped amphitheatre, set into the hillside contours, providing a new place for play and whole school gatherings.


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