Four Dwellings Primary School

So, we worked with the senior management to develop a design that supported personalised, kinaesthetic learning.

Designing the school from the inside out, we focused on the typical day of the student. We were determined to extend learning through internal, informal learning zones to the outdoors.

At the heart of the scheme is an inner central hall where the whole school can assemble. Extending outwards are a variety of different learning environments, beginning with social breakout spaces, then clustered classrooms where year groups can interconnect. The classrooms open to the outdoors via canopied learning spaces, before ultimately extending to external play spaces that are specific to each year group. A series of coloured toilet pods give identity to the individual year groups. This design provides the maximum variety of learning spaces, inside and out, while ensuring that classroom sizes are not compromised.

The building’s superstructure is a timber SIPS system with glu-lam portal frames to achieve the larger spans of the main school hall. Offsite fabrication allowed for ease of erection and reduced the construction programme on site. The ground floor façade is predominantly wrapped in glass to maximise natural light and ventilation with recycled glass aggregate blocks. Cedar cladding to the upper floor gives expression to the timber construction of the school.

In addition to the immediate pedagogical requirements, Birmingham City Council placed high value on the potential for schools to bring wider benefits: as a resource and point of pride to foster broader community cohesion and as a resource for adult education to extend learning to all ages. With its transformational and much-admired design, Four Dwellings has gone a good way to achieving that.