Awarding architectural excellence

The RIBA Awards celebrate success in architecture across the UK. With many schools shortlisted and announced as winners across the regional categories, Education Business looks at some of the architectural brilliance that is being recognised in our schools.

For 50 years the The Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) awards and prizes have championed and celebrated the best architecture in the UK and around the world, no matter the form, size or budget. Successful projects reflect changes and innovations in architecture, but at their core display a commitment to designing and developing buildings and spaces for the improvement and enhancement of people’s lives.

RIBA has begun unveiling the 2016 RIBA Regional Awards winners this month, with a number of schools noted for their achievements and excellence on successful architectural and design projects.

Mellor Primary School
Mellor Primary School, located in the Peak District, has been awarded the RIBA North West Award and the RIBA North West Project Architect of the Year 2016 Award. The school was noted for its uninspiring and deflated appearance as the judges approached the house – not because there was anything particularly wrong, but purely because the school looked like any other of its era and location.

However, when you are able to locate the architect’s focus, the school design changes the whole dynamic of the building. The classroom experience is thoroughly enhanced by the decision to concentrate architectural efforts on to the rear of the building, intertwining indoor and outdoor learning spaces that have the ability to transform and facilitate learning. A new classroom, SEN room, library and an extension to the school hall are all enabling Mellor Primary School to meet increased pupil numbers, and expand the teaching space available.

Built in August last year at a cost of £591,000, architects from Sarah Wigglesworth Architects have achieved, on a relatively small budget, what many schools seek but fail to attain. The naturalistic primary school extension blends indoor classrooms onto the wooden outdoor terraces, mixing the school perfectly with its landscape.

Andy Sokill, Trustee and chair of the Governors at the school, said of the project: “All our requirements were met and pursued with a massive dollop of professionalism and inventiveness.”

Welsh wonders
Burry Port Community School in Wales was commended for the collaborative work between the client, Carmarthenshire County Council, the architect, Architype, and the school itself to produce an excellent educational environment.

As the first Passivhaus school in Wales, a standard of eco‑building that strives to cut the carbon footprint of a building by promoting rigorous standards of energy efficiency, the new building has been heralded as stimulation for the children. The school, which reopened last year, links the Burry Port Infant and Burry Port Junior schools, accommodating children aged three to eleven.

However, what is most impressive is the link between the existing school building and the new extension, known within the school as the ‘Pod’. A double-height elliptical drum, with high acoustic quality, the space is being manipulated for dance, theatre and music.

This is an extremely sensitive, very carefully considered building that focuses on health, well-being and safety of students.

Using raw Welsh materials, such as locally sourced timber, judges deemed the school as setting the bar higher for the schools of the future.

New theatre facilities
The Quarry Theatre at St Luke’s has been created from a redundant Moravian church and Minister’s House to create a new performing arts centre. Whilst this is not directly a school refurbishment, Bedford School and the local community will provide a beneficial use for an important Grade II‑listed building.

The 200-300 seat flexible theatre contains a studio where the school can conduct its drama lessons, and can also use the large foyer space for teaching within. The building itself is a testament to its history, with most of the original features preserved, and the detailing of the new materials and insertions well thought through.

Foster Wilson Architects won the RIBA East Award for the project, at a construction cost of £4.3 million.

The winners in the South
In 2014, Nick Clegg, then Deputy Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal Democrats, launched an initiative that every school child should receive a free hot meal at lunchtime. At the time, certain schools deemed this unachievable, another burden on already tight purse strings. Other schools responded through embracing the initiative, seeing the necessities behind it, and made it possible. One such school was Prestwood Infant School in Great Missenden, Buckinghamshire, who created a new dining space for 96 pupils, which could also host the school’s after-school club. The new facility is located in one of the school’s playgrounds in place of two redundant storage sheds.

Drawing on inspiration from the Fantastic Mr Fox book from Roald Dahl, who lived in the area for 36 years, the project itself embodied Dahl’s narrative – transforming the place into a modern day Grand Feast Hall, as described in the book.

De Rosee Sa, the architects behind the £158,038 project, used inspiring rainbow‑coloured cedar battens to form the impression of houses, which fronted the dining hall. The result is visually stimulating and accurate to the book, with windows positioned at differing heights to reflect the differing house sizes of the animals. In the book, Mr Fox says: “We will make, a little underground village, with streets and houses on each side – separate houses for badgers and moles and rabbits and weasels and foxes.”

The judges deemed that ‘three aspects made Little Hall stand out. The first is the provision E of a building that inspires the schoolchildren and the local community; the second is the way in which this building inspires them; and the third is the use of prefabricated materials, where possible, and simple detailing to reduce the labour and waste in order to meet the school’s tight budget.’

Nicola Raher, head teacher, said: “We are absolutely delighted with our new Little Hall, there was much excitement amongst the children on the first day of term when they learnt they were going to have their lunch in the new building. The atmosphere was amazing, and having children in the building made it really come alive. The Little Hall is exactly as I wanted, a fun building that was unique and had the wow factor.

“De Rosee Sa and PMR were determined to complete the project within budget without compromising the quality of materials used. I am delighted that the excitement continues daily, the children love the building and have found every possible space and area to play in. Children will always learn more effectively if they are inspired and happy, the Little Hall truly does this for our children at Prestwood Infant School.”

Connecting pupils to the outside world
Established in 1940, Davenies School in Beaconsfield is a school for boys aged four to 13. The school bases much of its reputation and success on an ability to engage pupils with nature and maximising their connection to the world around them.

With many of the school blocks becoming outdated, architect DSDHA were appointed to carry out the final phase of a 20‑year masterplan, which would see the school gain ten classrooms for Reception level through to Year 4, generous breakout spaces, external play areas, a new library and a hall, along with staff facilities.

The judges deemed the new building, which replaced the previous 1980s building, as ‘uncompromisingly contemporary without being harsh’. The ‘calming and nurturing’ building doesn’t just sit alongside the surrounding landscape, but integrates itself within it. The classrooms, flooded with light, utilise space to create different atmospheres, ideal to the school’s holistic approach to learning. RIBA stated that ‘the sustainability strategy has been well conceived and implemented and the material and structural strategy is legible. This provides further opportunity for learning’.

The design builds on the site’s history as a farm, with an informal typology to deliver a series of distinct yet coherent architectural components echoing the school’s agricultural past. These new components are: the Link, which lightly touches the adjacent listed facade to provide a connection between the new extension and the rest of the school as well as a new library; the Reception/Teaching Wing, providing a smaller scale environment for younger children; and the Main Teaching Wing to the north, set around the verdant Dell, and accommodating a new hall below.

Architects DSDHA made the Dell the key element of design, despite the previous buildings turning their back to it. Its topography and existing trees determined the form and arrangement of the two wings of the new building, while, at the lower level, the Dell blurs its boundaries with a playground overlooked by a glazed hall, offering an extra indoor play area for the pupils.

A glance back
Burntwood School, a large comprehensive girls’ school in Wandsworth, London, won the coveted RIBA Stirling Prize 2015 for the UK’s best new building.

Architectural firm Allford Hall Monaghan Morris’ (AHMM) transformation of the school reimagined a 1950s modernist secondary school campus for 2,000 girls and 200 staff. The project saw six new faculty buildings built and also saw the creation of two large cultural buildings linking original buildings by renowned 1960s architect Sir Leslie Martin.

Every building is full of light and air with double height spaces at the end of each corridor to increase natural daylight and create well-framed views. It offers a range of teaching spaces from conventional classrooms to interactive open spaces. Already a very sculptural building, AHMM worked closely with an artist to use large, colourful murals throughout the buildings – cleverly combining signposting with modern art.

The winning projects from the London, Scotland, Northern Ireland and South West regional categories will be announced shortly. To view the winning schools in more detail, or to view the array of winning projects as a whole, please use the link below.

Further Information
www.architecture.com/Awards/Awards2016/RegionalAwards/RegionalAwards2016... www.architecture.com/Awards/Awards2016/RegionalAwards/RegionalAwards2016.aspx