I went for a wander yesterday into the hills of deepest Croydon to see Hayes Primary School in Kenley 10 years after it opened.

In 2010, the scheme had a CABE design review panel and I remember them saying – in a disparaging way – how filthy the screen would be over time because of the proximity of the trees and that overall the scheme lacked legibility between building and landscape.

I remember saying that I wouldn’t mind if in 10 years time the screen became really mossy and sappy as it would symbolise being enmeshed in its sylvan setting and visually indistinguishable from its landscape and that was the architectural ambition. I’m not sure that comment went down very well.

However, I can report that the school looks as good as new (and has done at every point I have revisited or wandered past over the years). The screen still looks sharp and dynamic and the landscape has now matured around it. The building feels quite bold yet synthesised in its landscape context.

I’ll take another trip back in another 10 years.

#hayesprimaryschool #thehayesprimaryschool #croydon #hayhurstandco #schooldesign #educationspaces #spacesforlearning #school #schoolbuilding #architecture #londonarchitecture

Hayes Primary School, Croydon. 2010-2012. Following on from last week’s post marking 10 years since the opening of Hayes – a bit more nourishment….

Here are some of the design drawings for Hayes that explore the use of CLT and the relationship between building, material and landscape.

Image 1. This was our first CLT project. It was a hybrid structure (along with some block work walls and steel beams). The CLT is conceived as one of a series of timber interventions.

Image 2. We spent a lot of time testing how CLT elements would read and be expressed relative to one another and the spaces they made. This photo shows the corner of a classroom where CLT wall meets CLT furniture meets removable CLT perforated panel that provides ventilation.

Images 3-6. The CLT was also used to make a 650mm-thick, 60m-long furniture wall that separated the classrooms and the circulation spaces. It provided storage – it looked really heavy (it was heavy!) but it wasn’t structural. The CLT elements were used horizontally and biscuit jointed at the corners. A visual expression of the language of trees in a sylvan site.

Images 7-10 The extension was located at the front of the school – just high enough that the previous building would be concealed from view and giving the impression if a new building. The roof behind the screen varied in angle to provide natural ventilation to the classrooms. The order of the landscape followed suit.

#hayesprimaryschool #hayhurstandco #schooldesign #clt #learningspaces #architecture #architecturaldrawings #timber #wood #anoldiebutagoodie #school #schoolbuilding #architecture #londonarchitecture

10 years old…! 🎉🎉🎉

10 years ago today, our extension to Hayes Primary School in Kenley, Croydon opened its doors for the first time…

A vibrant extension to a tired and out-dated school building at the heart of its community. The extension provided 4 new infant classrooms, an ICT Lab, a small hall and new administration facilities.

The main façade of the building has a reflective steel brise-soleil that provides shade from solar glare and over-heating to the teaching spaces as well as giving a uniformed building elevation. The perforations vary in size: larger at the bottom to let light in and gradually getting smaller to the top to allow for a greater level of reflection. This mirror-finished screen, positioned at high-level on the building’s façade, reflects the canopies of the mature trees at the front of the school site, giving the illusion that the mass of the building is reduced. Walking or driving past the building gives the sense of a dynamic elevation: a variable, enlivening and visually-engaging elevation.

Ahead of the curve and before we were talking so much about embodied carbon, we used CLT is used as the structure of the building as well as for the central storage wall that runs through the extension: a 650mm thick wall, made up from horizontally stacked timber panels that give an internal elevation of exposed timber end-grains. The solid-timber pieces are cut and stacked to form openings in the wall, through to the classrooms, and with recesses on alternating sides that form shelves for the school library, seats and reading alcoves as well as storage for classroom equipment and teaching materials. When stacked and biscuit-jointed, the end grain of the pre-fabricated element appears as a substantial and solid core at the centre of the school.

Amongst others, the project won a 2013 RIBA National Award, the NLA Award for Best Education Building and was the NLA overall winner: Best Building in London in 2013.

Here’s to the next 10 years…!

Photo Credits: @kilianosullivan

#10 #10yearsold #hayesprimaryschool #hayhurstandco  #schooldesign #croydon #clt #crosslaminatedtimber #education #educationspaces #teachingspaces #school #schoolbuilding