Details
The compact elliptical form arranged around a central hall is a great example of dRMM’s focus on exploring the planning and techtonic potential of prefabricated engineered timber.
dRMM is part of the Birmingham BSF framework with Catalyst and Bovis Lend Lease. In 2009, dRMM was selected to design a new build primary school as part of the Primary Capital Programme to provide a much-needed replacement school. Initial engagements with the school involved visualising the brief and exploring in a hands-on fashion the potential configurations that would best encapsulate the principles of paired class spaces and clustered year groups.
The primary school has been designed from the inside out, focusing on the typical day of the student with a determination to extend learning both to internal informal learning zones as well as to the outdoors. Learning beyond the classroom thereby consists of not only group and individual activities in a free-plan interstitial space between classrooms and a central hall, but also outside for learning through landscape and project based work.
Together with the simultaneous refurbishment of the existing secondary school on campus, the new primary school starts on site in summer 2011.
