Toronto Primary School

The original Toronto Primary school was completed in 1971. It is a long, primarily single-storey brick structure with a continuous copper fascia/flashing around its perimeter. The extension is to the west of the existing school, and the challenge for the architect and the landscape architect was making the whole school accessible and Disability Discrimination Act-compliant. This has been achieved by the introduction of internal and external ramps with subtle changes in floor level. Pupils now access the school from a safe drop-off point, through a clearly signposted lobby into an internal ‘streetscape’.

The new route through the school offers elevated levels of natural light. The head teacher and janitor’s offices are clustered together with administration space at the new secure entrance. The new games hall can also be used by the local community, and a timber screen can be moved to cut it and the entrance off from the rest of the school. In front are changing rooms and toilets around an assembly space lit by a large rooflight. Both the existing school and new addition are of steel frame construction and clad in large, precast concrete panels fixed to the frame, inside and out. The precast concrete panels are smooth-finished internally, but have a pattern set into the external cast that suggests the foliage of the mature trees to the front of the school.

The development comprises an innovative monolithic textured precast concrete games hall, which opens out to the school playing fields. The textured concrete is punctured only at high level by way of a bespoke sandblasted pattern across glazed Reglit apertures, conveying the pattern of the surrounding tree-lined avenue. The concrete wraps the entire base of the proposed extension, with the exception of the school’s main entrance, which is overclad in vitreous enamel rainscreen, signifying the school’s branding colour (RAL 3000 Flame Red).

While the building has a simple structural form, the bespoke nature of the materials made the detailing of the interface with the structure a challenge, in particular the 125mm-thick bespoke precast panels, the adjacent Reglit glazing and structural glass canopy between glazing. The architect’s design had taken the panel joints and junctions with adjacent materials to be a key feature of the design, resulting in minimal tolerance in the line and level of the precast concrete external cladding panels and associated elements.

In addition, the bold seamless nature of the precast panels, meant all fixings had to be made from the rear, providing restrictions on the phasing of the install and connections to the primary structure, requiring completion of the insulation and masonry envelope of the building prior to erection of the precast units.

The design team ensured close co-ordination with the precast supplier and steelwork contractor, and in turn we were able to develop a strategy for the installation of the panels, allowing them to be installed and levelled with minimal access to the rear fixings. By achieving this, the installation of the adjacent materials – the Reglit and structural glazed canopy – could be carried out in a relatively simple manner, ensuring the strong lines and key detailing were maintained throughout.