Hounslow Sure Start Centre
Subscribe now to instantly view this image
Subscribe to the Architects’ Journal (AJ) for instant access to the AJ Buildings Library, an online database of nearly 2,000 exemplar buildings in photographs, plans, elevations and details.
Already a subscriber? Sign in
The 'big top' roof reaches out to shield play decks, with play gardens beyond
Peter Grant Download Original
Nursery school in Hounslow identifiable by its ‘big top’ roof that shelters classrooms, courtyards and outdoor play areas
The main focus of the design is the sheltering roof, which has a symbolic role as well as the pragmatic one of providing a covered play spaces. The encompassing tent expresses the developing role of nurseries in taking an inclusive approach to the early years of family life
The concept started as a small tented city, each unit close to nature. This developed into a more buildable collection of spaces under one big top – effectively a rainscreen roof of polycarbonate on a steel frame. Other usual roof functions of providing ceilings, thermal and acoustic insulation, services routing, are located in the tops of the classroom volumes below.
There are generous sheltered outdoor play decks immediately on the north side for each of the main children’s spaces, and within the plan are more play decks to the east and an internal ‘beach’ courtyard – a sand-filled room rather than a sand pit.
Data
- Begun: Aug 2003
- Completed: Jun 2004
- Floor area: 726m2
- Sector: Education
- Total cost: £1.3M
- Tender date: Jul 2003
- Procurement: JCT Intermediate Form 1998
- Address: 103 Salisbury Road, Hounslow, TW4 7NW, United Kingdom
Professional Team 
- Architect: Cottrell and Vermeulen Architecture
- Client: National Day Nurseries Association
- Project manager: National Day Nurseries Association
- Client representative: Hives Associates
- Quantity surveyor: Stockdales
- Approved building inspector : Approved Inspectors
- Planning supervisor: Bates Zambelli Consulting
- Main contractor: Durkan Pudelek
- Services engineer: Max Fordham
- Structural engineer: Haskins Robinson Waters
Suppliers
- Steel frame: Hawkes Construction
- Cladding: Paneltech
- Flooring: Dalsouple Uni
- Landscape architect: Linden Landscape
AJBL Sponsor
Thrislington Cubicles
Builders of the worlds best toilet cubicles, vanity units, lockers and panels at our factory in the United Kingdom since the 1960s