The Gower School

The Gower School is one of the first Montessori primary schools in London. Our client’s brief was to create a beautiful building in amongst a dense inner-city site, in which children and staff would feel valued, and which fully expressed and supported the Montessori philosophy.

Location

London, UK

Area

600 m2

Status

Completed

Year

2007

Client

The Gower School

Architype transformed a suite of derelict buildings within a tight urban site into a delightful, vibrant primary school with a strong environmental agenda that runs through the building. Wrapped in zinc, with a contrasting lilac face and gold timber, the new building shines out within the dense urban sprawl of the Kings Cross area.

The Montessori philosophy gives highest priority to encouraging children to become independent learners and thinkers, who can take some responsibility for their own study programme. Architype developed a design to fully support this – we created a bespoke and unique learning environment which would be a warm, supportive, and fascinating for the children.

The children are really benefiting from the improved, increased space, and are really enjoying socialising on the roof garden and organising their locker room!

Emma Gower, Principal and Chair of Trustees

Vision

All vision

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Design

Architype took this very difficult and restricted inner city site and mishmash of semi derelict workshop buildings, and carved out a series of high quality and flexible spaces.

Our team worked very closely throughout the project with the client, and spent a lot of time in the school to truly understand their needs and unique philosophy. From this we developed a learning environment designed around natural light; natural ventilation; natural and non-toxic materials; excellent acoustics.

The whole process was an innovative approach to designing a complex building working with a client who wanted to change the brief as the project progressed. Architype chose the Construction Management Contract to manage the project, which meant we were able to respond quickly and flexibly to the client’s ideas, and fast track the project. This approach proved very good value.

Transforming these existing buildings into a vibrant new school required an intelligent response to the tight site and challenging levels. The design carved rooflights and new light wells into the existing structure, to create new viewing places, and minimise the need for artificial lighting. Existing materials were re-used as much as possible – for example some of the existing rooflights became clerestorey windows in the new storey.

Expertise

Self-directed learning

A range of indoor space includes smaller scale rooms for one-to-one learning and children with specific needs such as autism, and specialist spaces for music and language. Architype’s flexible layouts with consistent levels of natural daylight throughout encourage the Montessori sense of freedom for self-directed learning and multiple activities happening simultaneously without fuss.