1 June 2012
Capita Symonds has released images of the £7.5million St
Silas Primary School in Blackburn, Lancashire.
Working on behalf of Blackburn with Darwen
Borough Council, in partnership with the local LEP, Capita Symonds
provided a full range of multidisciplinary services – including
architecture, structural engineering, mechanical and electrical
engineering, landscape architecture, cost consultancy, acoustics,
project management, fire engineering, planning and transport
planning – for the two form entry, 420 pupil school.
The recently opened three storey building was
designed on a small, sloping, urban 2400 sq m site in just eight
weeks in the summer of 2010 using BIM as a full multidisciplinary
tool.
Located in a dense grid of Victorian workers’
terraces, one mile north west of Blackburn town centre, the site is
in the heart of a thriving community which has a large proportion
of Indian and Pakistani residents. With 99% of pupils hailing from
an Islamic background, this Church of England-run school provides
an interesting example of cross community engagement and social
mixing.
BIM techniques were utilised by the Capita
Symonds team to accelerate the design process, enabling hand drawn
concepts to be worked into three dimensions which were shown to the
school and local community as part of the engagement process, with
a final scheme reached in just a few weeks.
Working directly with the Local Education
Partnership – SHINE - and its contactor partner Balfour Beatty,
also meant cost and programme certainty could be insured allowing
demolition of the existing school to be undertaken just days after
planning consent was obtained.
The primary challenge of the scheme design was
the size of the existing site which, at just 60 metres by 40
metres, was considerably less than the typical recommended BB99
site allowance. In a bid to provide all classrooms with direct
access to external play space, the team utilised the area’s
topography, resulting in a three storey solution totalling 2200 sq
m which is layered over and pushed into the site and terraced to
maximise the external area with rooftop play spaces while using
level changes advantageously to create a simple, inspiring
solution.
The project comprises four linked blocks
wrapping around a secure play courtyard: a single storey block with
a rooftop play deck linked to the ground with a tube slide; two
three-storey blocks linked by a bridge of class spaces of which the
upper floor houses a mini-football pitch; and finally a main hall
block with staff accommodation on top disguising plant areas. This
design allows for over 800 sq m of useable play space off the
ground level, over 400 sq m more than was previously provided on
the existing flat site.
The disposition of the interlocking blocks is
laid out to maximise teaching spaces and allow different learning
styles with flexible indoor and outdoor teaching areas. The year
groups spiral up in plan around the courtyard with the eldest at
the top of the school. The flow between these blocks allows
flexibility for whole school activity; and community events while
the library is accessible from the main foyer and acts as a bridge
through the hall with a large window to the street, again
encouraging community and parental use. The pivotal internal space
in the school - a ‘through’ entrance hall - is focused on a cascade
of giant steps, acting as a central gathering space to provide
a stopping point in the mornings, a special space for learning, or
even a small performance venue.
The play of light and colour is deliberate
throughout the school, with coloured perspex step in-fills flooding
dining areas with a rainbow of light. The ‘wrapping’ elevation
cladding system is a series of coloured, translucent and solid
perspex fins designed to create a cost effective rapid solution to
enclose the otherwise relatively cheap envelope. This allows the
building to appear as a whole mass, but also breaks up the facades
as the viewer moves past the building with the whole exuding a
playful mix of transparency and lightness.
The locally sourced perspex (from Darwen, just
a few miles away within the borough) creates quick and ‘cropped’
reflections of the local context when viewed in passing and adds to
the ‘layering’ of form, colour and transparency to create a unique
learning environment in a very special place.
Early in the process the team worked with
community leaders and identified a need for a public space on the
high street that passes the site. As a result, 20% of the whole
site has been given back to the community in the form of formal and
informal gardens. These will be maintained by the community working
with the school and local authority.