Walkden High School
Salford
Designed by Aedas Architects.
11 June 2009
Tagged with: Secondary education | Design review | North West | School design | Schools design
Overall design quality rating: good
Comments:
The position and orientation of the school on the site responds well to the locality. The design of the school grounds creates a positive transition from the building to the outdoor spaces and creates areas that have the potential to be high quality facilities for outdoor learning. Both the site layout and the internal arrangement of the school are well organised and create a legible hierarchy across the internal and external spaces. The internal plan is particularly logical with a clear circulation strategy and an atrium that is set to be an inspiring focal point for the school. The elevations of the school exhibit a strong architectural idea; careful attention to detailing at the next stages of design is needed to create a high quality school. In particular, care needs to be taken to position the blank spandrel panels to coincide with the internal layout of the school, and at the same time, not lose the simplicity of the elevations. The principles of the resources strategy appear sound; equally careful design will be needed at a more detailed and technical level to achieve the comfortable internal environment intended. It is important, for example, that the windcatchers can effectively naturally ventilate the atrium.