Hayes School

Remodeling of existing secondary school, including construction of new classrooms, music and drama departments, library and learning resources centre and multipurpose hall. PCKO’s competition-winning scheme uses the new buildings to join the disparate collection of existing buildings together with new circulation routes, giving the campus a new sense of identity.

The main feature of the scheme is the internal street, a glazed circulation route which fills in the gaps between the library and the multi-purpose hall, around the main school hall. It forms a wide, glazed colonnade along the south side of one teaching block and links to the end of a second. The ‘street’ transforms leftover outside space and unifies the spine of the school's circulation.

The new buildings are constructed using simple, everyday materials and techniques: steel frame, rendered blockwork, aluminium curtain walling and profiled metal roofing.

For the two particularly visible elements of structure - the columns which support the welcoming roof overhang to the library, and the row of seemingly random columns in the school street - the architect and structural engineer devised a slender tree-like column, branching at the top into four or six struts.