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ROTHERHITHE PRIMARY SCHOOL, LONDON
FCBStudios visited the school many times, engaging in extensive dialogue with the council, school leadership, teachers and maintenance personnel
Scandinavia and the Baltic States, carefully- detailed timber is used internally, for the main gathering spaces and staircases. Roberts says that the restrained material palette, with accents of colour, was also selected to reflect this heritage, coupled with the school’s aspiration that the space should be a calm, focused learning environment, in contrast to the bustling city outside. The new steel-framed school’s GIA of 3,500 m² is largely determined by the Building Bulletin for Schools, but as Roberts explains, “spaces with irregular shapes occur at the point on the site where there is a shift in geometry.” As part of the consultation on the designs with the school leaders, the FCBStudios team used VR headsets to explore digital three- dimensional models of the new building to test and refine appropriate heights and sizes for windows and furniture.
This also facilitated seeing the building from the youngest pupils’ perspective: “We set the eye-level to that of a nursery-age child to simulate their viewpoint,” says Roberts. “This allowed us to check that the scale of spaces is not overwhelming and to ensure both adults and children benefit from views of the landscape and sky.”
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Programme & functionality The biggest difference, compared to the former design, was the decision to site the new school north of the former buildings to provide an environmental buffer against the traffic, pollution and noise of busy Rotherhithe New Road, which had intensified over the years. This also facilitated the phasing of the construction because the existing school had to remain open while the new one was built. “Working closely with our landscape architect colleagues at Fabrik, we developed a site diagram that pushed the principal ‘public’ elements, the main entrance, school hall and foyer, to the site boundary,” Roberts explains. “Like many urban schools, Rotherhithe Primary does a lot more than provide a setting for education, being used extensively for community activities. Creating a formality to the street elevation and a prominent front door - both of which the former buildings lacked, the new school now directly addresses and welcomes its community reflecting its civic purpose.” This allows for a quieter courtyard to be created within, which the focus placed on an existing mature red sycamore. A ribbon
ADF MAY 2024
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