Architonic projects of the year 2022: Education

Schools will soon start turfing students out for the festive season. Before a screaming tidal wave of textbook-throwing treasures are released back to their anxious parents, however, we use what little peace we have left to reminisce about projects past. So quiet down at the back there please, as we look back through our lesson notes, at the most popular new education buildings and interiors to appear in the Architonic class timetable in 2022. And don’t worry, there’s no Double Maths in sight.

At over 800 years old, Cambridge University gives certain architectural expectations to student applicants. Although Homerton College is the largest of the lot by student number, it’s also the newest – only achieving full College status in 2010. To address this, architects Feilden Fowles were tasked with adding a new Dining Hall building which would embrace, connect and improve the historic College grounds.

‘While many historic dining halls are solid at ground level and often dark as a result,’ admits Feildon Dowles, ‘the Homerton Dining Hall is bright, airy and efficient in the daytime, transforming into a dramatic evening setting, reflecting the traditional ceremonial role of the hall.’ Meanwhile, the required architectural grandeur expected of a Cambridge College is provided with ‘the halls main features, a sweet chestnut glulam timber frame and butterfly truss.’

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Far from the history and prestige, and indeed the riches, of an Oxbridge College campus, the Amadou Hampaté Bâ school is nevertheless specifically designed to suit its surroundings and its own expanding student population. While the Homerton Dining Hall utilises expensive design and technology with 50% GGBS cement replacement and a ground-source heat pump providing more sustainable energy, Collège Amadou Hampaté Bâ is built from locally-sourced sustainable laterite stone, ‘laterite provides thermal mass to slow the release of heat during the day,’ explains architects Article 25, and a double roof system enables passive ventilation which helps to keep classroom temperatures 7-8 degree centigrade lower than outside, while ‘the roof angle and building orientation help pull air through the roof cavity.’

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Another education building teaching the importance of building environmentalism as a core value of everything we do, is Delft University of Technology’s Echo Energy-Generating Interfaculty Teaching Building. With ‘1200 solar panels, smart installations, good insulation and a heat and cold storage system,’ state the project architects UNStudio, ‘Echo will be able to provide more energy than it requires for its daily operations, including user-related energy.’ 

Although built with as many circular construction materials and practices as possible, the project is designed as a fully future-proof campus, providing flexible areas for various styles of teaching, learning, collaboration and connection.

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Children don’t tend to start their academic educational journeys until they reach the age of 4-7 (depending on the country and culture), but their learning journey starts a long time before that. As soon as they can make out simple shapes and recognisable sounds, children start to benefit from social interaction. And so do their parents. This is why children’s centres like the PannKa Part Play and Community Center provide such a vital role in communities, both urban and rural.

Soft pine plywood is used throughout as the main surface material. The wood’s soft and warm feel ‘creates a calm, fresh and welcoming space for free play,’ as architects Archikon intended, but the hardwearing nature of wood – suitable for bashing, biting, chewing, spilling onto and generally being mistreated – brings additional functionality.

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The carefully balanced relationship between respecting historic architecture and culture, while adhering to the equally if not more important contemporary demands of safety, security and the environment, is one of the hardest aspects of architectural practice to master. ‘The school and residence of the Teresian Religious Community of Ganduxer is an enclosure made up of six pavilions, with the singularity and interest that the first of them was designed and built by Antoni Gaudí,’ explains PichArchitects/Pich-Guilera, who were tasked with the design and ‘construction of an evacuation staircase in one of the pavilions, which adjoined the Gaudí building.’

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© Architonic

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