Storytelling and learning spaces, The Stephen Perse Foundation

The brief was to remodel five internal spaces and an external courtyard to maximize the learning potential of the spaces and reflect the school’s curriculum and learning approach.

At the core of the project is a storytelling-led library and external courtyard space that allowed the pupils to explore fiction.

The design is inspired by books, letters and words. A habitable book signifies the presence of the storytelling spaces within the school’s corridors. Supersized letters display books and letter O becomes a feature seat. This space opens out to a courtyard where the iroko clad furniture are also supersized letters.

There are literary references in text from ‘Tom’s Midnight Garden’ and a street lamp from ‘The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe’.

In addition, a number of classrooms were reconfigured to allow the pupils better control of their own spaces, including shared resource areas and role-play dens.