Woodlea Primary School, Whitehill, Hampshire

Summary

Primary school, designed 1989, built between 1990 and 1991, by Hampshire County Council Architect’s Department, job architects Nev Churcher and Sally Daniels, extended in 2005 to a design by Nev Churcher.

Description

MATERIALS: the construction is a combination of brick walling, and a timber-frame on concrete pads, all partially clad in shiplap boarding. There are a variety of windows, including timber-frame picture windows, patent-glazed aluminium-frame skylights and clerestory lights. The roofs are covered in cedar shingle.

PLAN: the building has a crescent-shape footprint. The plan is arranged on1200mm grids with ‘node points’ at the junctions between different grid alignments. A largely open corridor, or ‘street’, runs from the lobby, through the centre of building, and along to the teaching wings. The school is built across a sloping site with three changes in level. The main entrance, staff rooms and library are on the middle level. A hall, kitchen and music room are on the upper level (west). The teaching wings are on the lower level (east); to the north is the infant teaching wing with a line of staggered classrooms, and to the south is the cranked junior teaching wing with pairs of classrooms on either side of a central cloakroom lobby.

EXTERIOR: the multi-faceted, single-storey building stands at the top of a grassy bowl that descends to the east. Visitors are led to the reception lobby by a tapering brick wall that extends out from the north side of the building. The elevations, where the building backs onto the hillside to the west, form an outer ‘crust’ of brick walls, including the west sides of the teaching wings, the staff rooms, kitchen, hall, and music room. Attached to the west side of the hall is a lower lean-to with a boiler room, and caretaker’s office; a small extension has been added to the west side. On the west elevation of the junior wing is a pair of covered verandas, reinforced with cross bracing; they are located on either side of the cloakroom lobby. The end of one of the covered areas has been partially infilled with half-timber and glazed partitions. In addition to the entrance doors to the reception lobby, there are various entrances around the building, including each classroom which has its own entrance on the west side. The doors are hardwood with glazed inserts.

On the east side of the building are the ‘inner’ elevations, which constitute the ‘soft side’, including a raised timber floor which projects over the ground-level descending to the east. The walling on this side of the building is principally timber-frame infilled by a combination of glazing and shiplap cladding. The window frames are timber and painted largely in accordance with the original paint scheme. There are several doors which lead out onto timber decking in front of the shared teaching spaces and the library. The decking is surrounded by timber posts with chunky hand and knee rails. Many of the decking planks have been replaced in recent years and the handrailing in front of the infant wing has been reinforced by slender timber balustrading.

At the east end of the infant wing is a flat-roof 2005 classroom extension with corresponding raised decks; it is constructed in similar materials as the original school building.

Most of the building’s roofscape is a complex arrangement of opposed mono-pitched and flat roofs. The roof over the central hall is an asymmetrical gambrel-style roof.

INTERIOR: the main entrance lobby and reception is located on the north side of the building on the middle level. To the east are a series of rooms including offices, toilet facilities, kitchen and a staff room, with timber and brick partitions and timber-clad ceilings. South of the entrance lobby, the hallway runs south. This level includes the open library area on the east side of the hallway and is delineated from it by half-height timber partitions and posts. The south end of the library has been partially enclosed in later years, with timber and glazed partitions. On the west side of the hallway is a cooking area, with brick and timber partitions, which has undergone minor alterations. There is also the former craft room which has been modified; most of the space has been repurposed to provide a further teaching space while the north end has been enclosed and used as a server room.

To the west is the upper level of the building, at the centre of which is the brick hall. The hall’s white plasterboard ceiling is supported by a laminated timber asymmetrical portal frame, including cruck-like principal rafters rising from the beechwood floor. Gym equipment is attached to the walls. Natural light is provided by a row of skylights. Either side of the south entrance to the hall are changing rooms. Adjacent is the music room which is irregular in plan for reason of acoustics. Natural light comes from an assortment of windows of various shapes set into its brick walls.

To the north-east and south-east of middle level are the teaching wings located on the lower level. Many of the timber partitions within the teaching wings are partially glazed and there are opening and windows in the walls providing observation points between the classrooms including round windows by the entrance ways closest to each wing.

To the north is the infant wing with a staggered line of classrooms. Each of the original classrooms includes an enclosed base on the west side with a low roof and with a more limited number of windows. The principal classroom area is subdivided into a wet area with brick walls, tiled floor and sink to the west, and dry area to the east with timber-frame walls and carpeted timber floor. Each tile floor includes encaustic tiles with different designs which were created by various invited artists. The ceiling treatment also changes with plaster ceilings to the west and slatted timber ceilings to the east. Further east, the classrooms open onto a shared space from which doors open onto the outdoor decking areas. The 2005 narrow classroom extends to the north-east of the infant wing.

The cranked junior wing classrooms have a similar internal arrangement with a brick and tile west side, and timber-frame to the east; there are no bases in this wing. Along the east side is another shared space with doors opening onto an outdoor decking area. At the centre of the wing is a brick cloakroom; it includes lockers that have recently replaced earlier timber shelves and coat rails. At the north end of the wing is an enclosed former tutorial room; this has recently been repurposed as the headteacher’s office.

History

Woodlea Primary School was designed in 1989 by Hampshire County Council Architect’s Department for Hampshire County Education Department, and built between 1990 and 1991. The architect’s department, under the leadership of Sir Colin Stansfield Smith (1932-2013, knighted in 1993), created a large body of important work done in-house or by private architects and was noted for its inventive and successful school buildings. The job architects for Woodlea Primary School were Nev Churcher and Sally Daniels. Nev Churcher joined Hampshire County Council in 1978, one of Stanfield Smith’s first recruits from the Portsmouth school. Churcher was also the project architect for Bosmere Junior School (1982-1983; Grade II; List entry: 1445008). He was awarded an MBE for his services to architecture and education in 1996. Sally Daniels was a student at Portsmouth, taught by Churcher, who took two and a half years out of her course to work for Hampshire County Council. The landscaping was designed by Pirkko Higson and Stuart Pearson who incorporated curved playgrounds, gardens, ponds, a playing field, and the planting of 150 species of plants and trees.

The 1944 Education Act divided schooling into primary and secondary stages with a break at age 11. Some authorities provided separate infant and junior schools with a break at age 7 plus; others were primary schools for the 5-11 age range. School sizes likewise varied from two-class village schools to primaries of 480 pupils. Informal, ‘child-centred’ learning through first-hand experience, advocated in the influential Plowden report of 1967, was encouraged by the provision of special areas for quiet and messy work and more open layouts. At Buckinghamshire and Hampshire, a mix of enclosed class bases and shared space was provided, allowing teachers to strike their own balance between varied groups and activities and traditional whole-class teaching.

The site chosen for Woodlea was the side of a wooded hill topped by Walldown Enclosures, a multi-phase hillfort (scheduled; List entry: 1017368). The original intention of the scheme was to create a separate infant and junior school. After the architects visited the site, they persuaded their clients that a single primary school was more appropriate. Initially, the proposals called for eight classrooms; however, the final design included seven classrooms.

The school was one of a number of education buildings designed by the Hampshire architect’s department which drew on the influence of vernacular forms and traditional materials. The design of Woodlea was conceived as a ‘cluster of houses around a town hall’. The building was designed to have a ‘hard’ outer side or ‘crust’ to the west and ‘soft’ side to the east, achieved through a composite structure of brick walls and concrete floors, contrasting with a timber-frame construction and decking. The design used eleven special paint-colour treatments for the wood, consisting of an earthy palette of browns, beiges, reds and soft purples. The building was laid out over three levels which emulated the natural contours of the site. A key aspect of design was the integration of the school building with the wider landscape. It was intended to create what was described by Nev Churcher as a ‘total learning environment’ with a mix of internal and external learning spaces. This was in line with the ‘Learning Through Landscape’ movement initiated by Hampshire County Council.

Woodlea School was chosen as the joint winner of the Biennial Education award for the best school building (1992) and won the RIBA Building of the Year award (1993). Nev Churcher and Sally Daniels were awarded the BBC Design Awards Architecture and Environment’s Designer of the Year Award. (1994).

After completion adjustments were made to the size and distribution of radiators to improve heating, and several coats of acoustic insulation were added to the ceiling to improve sound insulation. By 1996 the reception and secretary’s office had been relocated to the middle of the building, on the site of the craft room; this change was reversed at an unknown date. Other minor modifications included partitioning off one end of the central library space and the conversion of the former craft room to create a further teaching space. The former tutorial room in the junior teaching wing has been repurposed as the headteacher’s office. The most significant change to the building is the addition of a classroom on raised stilts, attached to the east end of the infant teaching wing; it was added in 2005 and designed by Nev Churcher using similar materials and design principals as the original building.

Reasons for Listing

Woodlea Primary School, designed 1989, and built between 1990 and 1991, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* the traditional materials, vernacular references and varied roofline are combined to create a very well-thought-out and award-winning school design;

* it has a sophisticated layout that survives very well, creating carefully considered spaces for a variety of different types of learning activities;

* the ‘hard’ (e.g. brick) and ‘soft’ (e.g. timber framing) building materials contrast well with each other, and the school has a warm and earthy palette that reflects well the surrounding landscape.

Historic interest :

* it is an acclaimed example of a school designed in-house by Hampshire County Council Architect’s Department, which created a large body of important work and was noted in particular for its inventive and forward-thinking school buildings.

External Links

Historic England Listing

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