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Hornsby House School

Dimwiddie MacLaren Architects, London, 2003

 

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The bluff southerly ground floor faces onto Ravenslea Road, where the visitor entrance is situated; pupils enter on Hearnville Road 

Ian Goodrick     Download Original

  • The bluff southerly ground floor faces onto Ravenslea Road, where the visitor entrance is situated; pupils enter on Hearnville Road    
  • The bluff southerly ground floor faces onto Ravenslea Road, where the visitor entrance is situated; pupils enter on Hearnville Road    
  • View from the play area outside the nursery/reception block    
  • View from the play area outside the nursery/reception block    
  • Northerly, playground side with stairs from gallery. The nearest, largely windowless ground floor space is the music room    
  • Rooftop wind-catcher/ventilators supply each first floor classroom    
  • The architects have balanced the contrasting demands of security with openness to daylight and natural ventilation    
  • The largely windowless ground floor space includes the music room    
  • Site plan    
  • Ground floor plan    
  • First floor plan    
  • Section aa    
  • Early hand sketch    

New classroom building for Hornsby House School in Balham, south-west London, that makes use of ventilating wind-catchers along a barrel-vaulted roof

A new classroom building along the southern site edge has been built following the demolition of an earlier building.

The south-side ground floor is cut off from views and so is largely lined with stores and WCs. The main office spaces and library open to the north on to the playground. A music room makes use of this southerly enclosure and double walls for acoustic protection. Practice rooms are accessed from the lobby, which also assists acoustic separation.

On the first floor the feel changes, the space is accommodated within a 9m span barrel-vaulted roof, with its springing points aligning with adjacent eaves of the Victorian school buildings.

This first floor is fully glazed and shaded at either end. Its two central classrooms borrow light from a northern fully glazed gallery, supplemented by sun pipes at the ridge. Also at the ridge of each first-floor room are monodraught windcatchers, internally subdivided both to admit wind for ventilation and to facilitate passive stack ventilation.

The open areas of the windcatchers are controlled automatically via dampers, based on temperature and CO2 sensing.

Data

  • Begun: Dec 2002
  • Completed: Sep 2003
  • Floor area: 380m2
  • Sector: Education
  • Total cost: £940,772
  • Procurement: JCT IFC 98 form and two-stage competitive tendering
  • Address: Hornsby House School, Hearnville Road, London, SW12 8RS, United Kingdom

Materials

Brick, Steel-frame

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