Influenced by ecclesiastical and monastic architecture, this college developing in Somerset, England functions a row of brick gables that sit on leading of a concrete colonnade .
Hazlegrove College is a preparatory school founded in 1519 and set in 200 acres of parkland near the village of Sparkford. London architecture workplace Fergus Feilden and Edmund Fowles had been asked to style a new facility at the school’s Grade II-listed campus.
The Fitzjames Educating and Learning Centre replaces numerous short-term educating blocks with a new academic hub containing six classrooms, informal study areas and a communal space for the school’s geography and history departments.
The facility flanks a new courtyard at the end of the school’s two primary axes and adjoins an existing single-storey teaching creating that has been converted into employees offices.
The use of red brick for the building’s exterior is a reference to the materiality of the school’s 18th-century Hazlegrove House.
Educational theorist Bart McGettrick was consulted during the early stages of the design and style process. In accordance to the architects, his study “led to the exploration of ecclesiastical and monastic typologies, which are extensively accepted as profitable spatial models for training”.
A colonnade made from precast concrete extends along the front of the new building and links up with a timber cloister added to the present classroom building, supplying sheltered outdoor spaces made to enhance the impression of a classical plaza.
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“The building is developed in a contemporary idiom, in a design and materialisation harmonious with the original college creating,” stated Feilden and Fowles. “Adopting a classical formality, the facade aims to set up a civic presence and emphasise the role of the courtyard in front.”
The handmade red bricks used to clad the facility were designed in collaboration with a neighborhood factory and incorporate some with glazed black headers that add texture and visual depth to the facades.
“The brick is complemented by the architectural precast concrete colonnade and cills, which emphasises the rationality of the facade,” the architects extra.
Roughly four,000 colourful glazed bricks made by a ceramicist in Devon have been applied in a geometric pattern to the inner surface of the colonnade.
The building’s steel supporting frame is visible within the open central atrium, where a wooden stair gives a seating platform overlooking the multipurpose space.
Photograph by Michael Blyth
“The interior is characterised by cruciform columns that support the upper balcony and type an arched truss over, obtaining a powerful constant line from ground plane to roof construction and creating a truly uplifting room to inspire studying,” the architects stated.
Two classrooms are positioned on either side of the foyer, although the staircase ascends to a U-shaped balcony with two additional classrooms on each side.
Seating places dotted around the communal are are meant to market flexible and independent learning by making it possible for pupils to operate in groups or individually, even though the glazed classroom walls ensure staff can continuously oversee what’s going on in these spaces.
“The flexible spatial configuration, degree of visual transparency and acoustic management combine to guarantee a productive stability among a lot more standard classroom environments and the open resource room,” mentioned Feilden Fowles.
Photography is by David Grandorge, unless otherwise stated.
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Ground floor prepare 
Initial floor strategy Dezeen
