ROTHERHITHE PRIMARY SCHOOL, LONDON 19
of outdoor spaces on the periphery creates dedicated areas outside each nursery and classroom for Year 1 pupils. This visual connectedness helps in conveying a sense of belonging to the school community and an awareness of others, and there’s a further connection to Southwark Park, conceptually bringing its ‘borrowed’ landscape across Hawkstone Road and into the main playground. “Achieving a balance of security and openness is a fundamental challenge in urban school design, but one which is critical to embedding a school within its context,” says Roberts. She continues: “Key to the successful and sustainable operation of the school are the graded sequence of secure lines. The arrangement of the welcoming entrance area ensured the hall and foyer spaces could be used by the community out of hours, and be safely, quickly, and efficiently set-up and managed by the school.”
Great consideration was given to ‘anthropometrics’ in relation to designing according to the size of the children using each set of spaces. This creates a subtle sense of progression around the building as the children mature.
ADF MAY 2024
“For the nursery and reception classes it was crucial to create intimate spaces to ease their formative experiences of the education system,” Roberts explains. “We employed smaller, more playful spaces, with furniture and finishes of a more domestic character to create an element of familiarity.” Meanwhile, dedicated circulation routes and play spaces define areas for different key stages, and the building is designed so all enjoy views through and across the school as they circulate during the day. As the children move up through the school, they move upstairs where the classrooms have more formality. This gradually prepares them for their eventual departure onwards to secondary school. Throughout the school, unexpected and often discrete spaces have been carved out for small group learning, intervention and play, including seating areas under the stairs, both internally and externally. All this was achieved in challenging circumstances. The existing school had to remain operational throughout the construction. FCBStudios created a phased masterplan that enabled the practical delivery of the project, but also considered the quality of the interim conditions to
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Quirky and intimate spaces have been included to enable children to have some quieter time
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