The regeneration of Marlborough School is the product of a successful s106 planning negotiation. Dixon Jones won a competition in 2011 to redevelop the adjacent Clearings site owned by John Lewis into residential use. A community contribution fund was agreed with RBKC to redevelop their Marlborough site to provide a brand new local authority school to replace the original Victorian buildings. In order to release the site for redevelopment, an interim school (also by Dixon Jones) was created on the Clearings site to relocate Marlborough School temporarily during the 2 year construction period.
The redevelopment brief was extremely challenging. In addition to requiring a larger primary school with over 2,500m2 of external learning and play areas, RBKC also called for a new Commercial Building (offices/ retail) and a pedestrian link to be provided across the site. The challenge was therefore how to achieve this significant increase in density across this confined urban site whilst creating a fitting replacement for the original Victorian School. The massing constraints posed by a 10 storey apartment block to the east contrasted with a 5 storey blank party wall to the west resulted in a stepped section across the site establishing a series of cascading ‘garden terraces’ offering a rich diversity of external play areas accessed directly from classrooms. The school is organised around this vertical section starting with the youngest pupils at ground (3-5y) through to the junior pupils at the top (9-11y).
The stepped section allows larger communal spaces to be created underneath where the Main Hall and Multi-Use Space form the social heart of the school.
The school combines several uses into one building including a larger 2FE primary school, a full time Nursery and an Autism Centre (total 458 pupils). The SEN spaces in particular were included as part of RBKC’s borough wide strategy to provide specialist support for local families who had previously had to travel further afield to the north of the borough. Many families from the school community live locally and as such car use has been restricted to a single space on site for staff. Children are encouraged to walk to school and covered areas have been provided for bicycle and scooter parking at each playground entrance. The addition of the new pedestrian link across the site also creates a positive addition to the public realm and increases permeability in the local area which had previously been restricted by an unbroken urban block spanning almost 300m between Ixworth Place and Whitehead’s Grove.
This ambitious scheme warranted extensive dialogue with the Local Planning Authority. The design was developed to ensure the proposed massing and robust masonry detailing with characteristic stone banding would serve to compliment both the original school and the wider local context with the green glazed brick and circular windows referencing the polychromy of Michelin House nearby. In contrast to the Victorian school which had stood behind foreboding brick boundary walls, the new building seeks to engage with the public realm with a welcoming a community entrance and playground gates. The school supports a range of extra-curricular activities to assist families with working parents and has also been designed to support a range of out-of-hours community uses which include meeting facilities, ballet classes and 5-a-side football club which extend the use of the building beyond the normal school day.
The commitment to providing high quality outdoor learning and play areas on this constrained urban site presented a significant challenge. The landscaping offers a diverse range of environments which stimulate the social benefits of incorporating nature in the city as well as promoting exercise and sport. The planting and biodiversity strategy was developed with Macgregor Smith and seeks to maximise the opportunity for habitat creation and species diversity. Inclusion of nature and ecology has been integral throughout the external ‘playdecks’ which include raised tree planters (including native fruit trees and a lavender garden), productive garden areas to support the school’s ‘growing club’ (with greenhouse, planters, composting wormery, log wall ‘bug hotels’) and trailing plants and espalier pear trees behind the timber pergola screens.
The Local Authority brief required a sustainable school capable of delivering future-proofed learning and working facilities fit for the 21st Century. A low energy passive approach was adopted to minimise running costs and reduce the need for future maintenance. The classrooms are naturally ventilated and arranged alongside the cascading roof terraces. The generous floor-to-ceiling heights promote the passive single sided ventilation approach and also allow daylight to penetrate deep into the plan thereby reducing the need for internal lighting. The classrooms also feature exposed ‘visual concrete’ soffits to exploit the inherent passive cooling benefits in the thermal mass of the superstructure. The building features high quality and robust masonry detailing for increased longevity with a high performing external envelope to reduce heating demands and CO2 emissions. London Stock bricks from the original Victorian school were salvaged for re-use and several of the historic keystones and SBL plaques were rebuilt into the new facade to preserve the legacy of Marlborough.
