The Burntwood School development consists of six new educational buildings-as-pavilions and a new landscape plan for the campus. The original swimming pool & gymnasium building and main assembly hall, designed by Sir Leslie Martin, have been retained and refurbished, whilst other buildings no longer fit for purpose were demolished. The new development increases the school’s capacity by more than 200 pupils to 2,000, plus 200 staff.

“Architects must respond to the old forms and materials and perceive their true intent in their own age, and then, remembering everything, start again. This is the essential intention of tradition.” - Sir Leslie Martin

The design of Burntwood School has remained true to this philosophy by retaining Martin’s elegant assembly hall and pool building, whilst the series of new buildings respond to the latest technical developments in precast concrete construction and follow a similar logic to the original building typologies. In line with the Modernist heritage of the original buildings, Burntwood School is experienced as a campus development, exploiting the views and spaces between the buildings and enabling the green spaces beyond to be appreciated from the heart of the campus.

The six new pavilions include four curriculum buildings for business skills, arts & technology, communications and maths & science. A new sports hall is located next to the original pool building and a new performing arts building with a ground floor dining hall extends out to an external dining terrace next to a flower meadow. Burntwood School is a great example of an architectural practice and contractor working collaboratively and rising to programme and budget challenges to deliver a campus development that has exceeded the client’s expectations.

"Here, where Burntwood farm once stood, the river winds; where there were fields and woods, a new school rises, walls of concrete, glass, parallelograms of sunlight, shade, library, classrooms, corridors, arcades, sifting seconds through its hourglass, letting the light in, kindling creativity for dreams to grow like a living, leafing tree." Gillian Clarke

Transformation of Burntwood School has retained the existing mature trees and modernist layout and style of the previous school, whilst reorganising new pavilions around a main civic spine. Urban green spaces spill off this spine and become less formal and more naturalised the greater the distance from the core.

The central flag lawn plays an important role in the daily life of the school. It is a formal raised plane of grass. Gardens for educational disciplines which are also outdoor teaching areas are located adjacent to pavilions. Beside the communication block a contemplative garden overlooks the playing fields, with a simple raised grass rectangle sloping above a grouping of birch trees with seating.

The dining room looks out onto a new wide meadow with trees. A memory of the site’s pastural past is echoed in the new fields of Burntwood School.

Excellent site planning has resulted in an organised simplicity of relationships between Landscape and Architecture that aids wayfinding. The strong visual framework of unusual trees and simple generous planar spaces aids legibility and supports the creation of a great sense of civic space and place.