Guidance
Baseline designs: 1,120 place secondary school
Finger-block baseline designs for a 1,120 place 11 to 16 secondary school.
Documents
Details
Baseline design for a 1,120 place 11 to 18 finger-block secondary school
The design shown is a 3 storey building for 900 pupils aged 11 to 16 and 220 sixth-form pupils aged 16 to 18. The school is devised as a kit of parts, based on the suites of spaces in the Schedule of Accommodation (SoA).
Such an approach allows:
- parts to between blocks
Other key features of the design
Other key features of the design are that:
- the dining space provides a central focus to the school and can be used as a milling space during the school day and, in conjunction with the hall and drama space, for after school events
- ICT is located opposite the dining area for lunchtime activities
- uninterrupted runs of a 7.8 metre room depth allow both general and practical teaching spaces to be accommodated and facilitate future change
- voids in the centre of the teaching wings bring daylight into the corridor and the backs of classrooms (they also act as ventilation stacks providing natural ventilation, particularly during the summer)
- the simple 3 storey teaching wings provide an efficient building form that is easy to extend in future
- the short and long blocks can be combined in various ways to suit a wide range of school sizes
- general and practical teaching spaces are organised in suites with a sense of identity, but allowing some variation in the range of spaces
- each floor, which can serve one or two departments, includes a staff workroom and an office, teaching stores and toilet
- the library resource area on the first floor and the sixth-form base on the second floor form the bridge between the 2 finger blocks