design solutions
the extension. The internal spaces offer views through the building towards the mature trees beyond, creating a stimulating learning environment as well as a view through the building. The school together with a new public space is significantly set back from the street, providing an intelligent urban design solution for parents to drop-off/ pick-up without causing congestion on the residential street.
The large covered entrance to the school offers glimpses into the playground while providing a protected environment for the children. The distinct roofline of the saw- toothed and double-pitched roofs pays homage to the industrial past. This is also picked up in the children’s drawings of the school. It also helps to bring excellent levels of daylight through the north clerestory windows into the teaching spaces, offering a spatial and serene quality throughout the school. The arrangement of classes and circulation encourages the children to move through open spaces and connection to the outdoors is framed at every turn with generous windows. The robust, lightly stained timber surfaces and panelled walls conceal
storage spaces and a careful layout of lobby areas for cloaks and storage also buffer the space between the ground floor classrooms and the outdoor play space in the colder periods. In amalgamating circulation with breakout spaces, the architect has strived to make them work hard and in many different ways without compromising calmness.
The grand assembly hall impressed is impressive and reminiscent of the scale of a Victorian school hall with its huge volume and pitched roof. However, this is much warmer and far better acoustically! It is flexible and can be divided and used as a dining and sports hall with plenty of integrated storage space for equipment to be tidied away.
Kingsgate makes successful use of the site, within a carefully considered masterplan that addressed the adjacent railway line and benefits from a southern aspect, creating a ‘connected’ public space. Key features of the original school building, with its pop-up dormer windows, smaller scale roof elements and gable elevations, have been reinterpreted in the form and scale of the extension, enabling it to sit comfortably in the wider school site. The new internal spaces draw on the
daylight qualities and proportions of the existing space. Generous pitched ceiling heights create a feeling of spaciousness and daylight enters from multiple directions. Low- level windows frame areas for window seats and reading spaces while high-level windows and rooflights provide views of the sky and assist with natural ventilation.
www.swarch.co.uk www.graham.co.uk
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