Pavilion at St Johns and St James CE Primary

Schools can’t wait to be improved or stop during construction, so building in a working school becomes a mad-hatters tea party carefully moving each other around.

Temporary accommodation takes money away from the finished school, so instead of renting mobile classrooms we chose to invest in a permanent pavilion; a grand garden shed in the middle of the playground, a music room, a go-to destination, a specialist teaching and learning space.

Placed initially between construction phase boundaries, it’s now a pentagon to play around and in, five walls with a big open corner and five roof petals pitching to an eccentric roof light. These ten sheets of cross-laminated timber work together as structure, envelope and internal wood finish, all assembled in twenty hours. Red and green shingles clad the outside in a pattern to gradually ripen the pavilion to the south west. A rosy apple for teachers and kids alike.