Design website showcases inspirational schools
13 February 2009
A new website which showcases examples of innovative school design from around the world has been launched to inspire students, teachers and architects involved in the Building Schools for the Future and other school renewal programmes.
Imagine - www.imagineschooldesign.org - was officially launched this week at BSEC (Building Schools Exhibition and Conference) by Tim Byles, Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools. The website features research by architecture experts from the University of Sheffield who have reviewed around 150 schools, colleges and universities from the UK and overseas.
The Imagine website, which is sponsored by Partnerships for Schools and Balfour Beatty, shares information about some of the innovative design features which are making these spaces a stimulating place to learn. The examples range from schools where the design is helping to stimulate new teaching styles and increase opportunities for personalised learning, through to buildings which are creating a new sense of community or which include sustainable features.
Among the schools selected by Bureau - Design+Research from Sheffield’s School of Architecture to feature on Imagine are:
- Mimers Hus, Sweden, sets new standards for a school and community facility. The quality of space and materials creates a simple but refined building that offers an excellent library, auditorium and art gallery for use by everyone in the local area.
- St Georges Junior School in Edinburgh has undertaken several new-build elements that are woven into the fabric of the existing school complex, invigorating existing buildings and providing cutting-edge facitilities.
- The Open Air School, Suresnes, France, built in 1935 was one of the first schools to embrace the special education needs of children. The building is a series of pavilions in a landscape, where by the classroom walls dissolve to provide inside/outside learning environments.
Tim Byles, Chief Executive of Partnerships for Schools - the organisation responsible for the delivery of the Building Schools for the Future programme - said: “Building Schools for the Future provides a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for us to transform education. We are already seeing some exciting – and award-winning – designs coming through BSF, but we want to do more to help spread best practice and the Imagine website is an accessible way of doing this.
“We know that embarking on BSF is an exciting, but sometimes also a daunting prospect for schools and local authorities who are eager to learn about success stories elsewhere in the sector. By supporting Imagine, PfS hopes to give inspiration to students, teachers, governors, parents, as well as architects, local authorities, and sustainability experts. Visiting the Imagine website will bring a world of inspirational design examples within the reach of everyone at the click of a mouse.”
Prue Chiles, Director of Bureau, said: “Research for the Imagine website was informed initially by a desktop study to identify innovation and good practice school design around the world within the last 10 years. Our selection is informed by a desire to present a wide range of architectural styles and approaches from different countries, allowing the resource to be both broad and inspiring in its architectural outlook. We are mindful that the Imagine website will be used by designers and other professionals including teachers and have tried to use technical language that is accessible, avoiding jargon where possible.”
“Imagine will be updated on a regular basis with new case studies focusing on the latest learning environments from around the world including examples from countries not already represented on the site such as South Africa, Greece and China. A Quarterly Topical Essay will provide a more in-depth review of important aspects of school design with the first, Furniture for Learning, discussing the importance of furniture as an integral part of schools design.”
David Swarbrick, Managing Director, New Business, Balfour Beatty Capital, said: “The BSF programme challenges all involved in its delivery to re-evaluate the environments that promote transforming education. The Imagine website aims to make visible those completed projects from across the world, critically assessed to include innovative design features that challenges your thinking on design for learning. It seeks to inspire the creation of places where students want to be, where they can take full advantage of the educational opportunity. Balfour Beatty Education fully supports this endeavour.”
The Imagine website will be updated on a regular basis, with new schools added along with a quarterly paper focusing on a key issue in the design of learning environments.
Notes to Editors:
About Imagine
The Imagine website, which is available at: www.imagineschooldesign.org, includes:
- Thematically based case studies focusing on issues including: integrated ICT, environmental design and flexibility for space and learning.
- The examples give information about the about the architect, size of the school, number of students and cost.
- A broad range of schools; from single classroom additions to new learning campuses, kindergartens to higher education establishments, cob-wall buildings in Bangladesh to Hi-Tech schools in the US.
- Where possible all school studies have images and scaled drawings, to give an in-depth account of the design.
- Schools case studies are from the last 10 years, with an additional range of historic schools that act as a touch stone for school design development.
- There are a number of search mechanisms that help users find the right information quickly and enable links to be formed between case studies.
- Future planned essays for the website concern external learning environments and landscapes, SEN schools and a country focus where we will be looking at Dutch schools and seeing how their design and pedagogy could influence ours. Other planned developments will incorporate feedback on more detailed visits in the UK or abroad and may include interviews, multimedia developments and collaborations with contributors to Imagine from around the world.
About BSF/PfS
- Building Schools for the Future (BSF) is the largest single schools capital investment programme for over 50 years. The aim is to rebuild or renew England’s state secondary schools estate during the lifetime of the programme.
- There are now 50 BSF schools open across England, with 80 local authorities across the country now engaged in the programme.
- Partnerships for Schools (PfS) is the delivery organisation for Building Schools for the Future. PfS was established in April 2004 as a Non-Departmental Public Body (NDPB), and is operated and funded under a joint venture between DCSF (formerly DfES) and Partnerships UK. PfS is a 100-strong organisation, with specialist expertise including educationalists, designers, ICT specialists, commercial managers and project management.
About Bureau – Design+Research
Bureau - Design+Research is an independent design-led research and consultancy unit based in one of the leading schools of architecture in the country at the University of Sheffield. We are a team of architects and researchers promoting and advancing design within the built environment through research, consultancy and practice.
Bureau specialises in school design and has been involved in many facets of the briefing, design and realisation of learning environments including:
- Designing and building schools through practice
- Researching and publishing work on the design of school environments
- Working with pupils on design workshops
- Undertaking design training with teachers and senior management teams
- Sitting on design advisory and review panels
- Collaborating with building contractors on research and development projects
- About Balfour Beatty
Balfour Beatty has nine PPP concessions in the education sector, three under the BSF programme at Southwark, Islington and Knowsley, five in the UK under the previous PPP model at Stoke, Bassetlaw, Rotherham, Birmingham and North Lanarkshire and one in Singapore. These programmes involve the construction of approximately 100 new schools and learning centres and upgrading and maintaining well over 100 others. Balfour Beatty has over £60 million of committed equity in the sector. - Balfour Beatty companies are construction partners in a number of other PPP schools schemes including the BSF schemes in Hackney, Haringey and Greenwich with a total contract value of over £220 million and is a framework contactor providing construction services to both the £180 million scheme for the Manchester City Council and the £100 million scheme in Liverpool.
- Balfour Beatty is a world-class engineering, construction, services and investment business, well-positioned in infrastructure markets which offer significant long-term growth. We work in partnership with sophisticated customers who value the highest levels of quality, safety and technical expertise. Our skills are applied in appropriate combinations to meet individual customer needs.