Architecture Year 2 - Bute Lane Primary School

Returning to the back lanes of Penarth for our second project, we were given the brief to design a medium sized primary school on the existing Bute Lane Nursery site in Penarth. This project began by analysis of the site with regards to the circulation and routes into site, along with overlooking properties and building uses. This helped us to formulate site strategies for our proposals and placement of services on the site.

Forming Concept - Primer Project

In order to develop a spatial strategy for the primary school the first brief set was to create an object or space at a child's scale. We worked in smaller groups within the unit and started by researching the ergonomic differences in children of primary school age and this developed the idea of a unit which could increase in size and scale throughout their time in school. We decided to design a chair and table which could be part of a set and increase with the child's progression through school: starting as a series of cubes which could become imaginative play spaces for early years and increasing to a desk and chair for years 2 - 6.

It was important that these chairs could be easily stowed away and therefore we designed them as a series of stacking cubes which could easily be cleared out of the classroom to increase the programmatic and out of hours uses of the classroom spaces.