Rhyl Kitchen Classroom

The new building serves a Camden community suffering from high childhood obesity, where diet-related disease is a major cause of illness and premature death. It helps the school respond to this acute need for both quality food and food education.

On their former school car park, food is lovingly grown from seed in their teaching garden (complete with orchard, potting shed, raised planters and pizza oven) and prepared in their new kitchen classroom. It ends up on plates at home, at regular events, or the local food bank. Any waste goes on the compost heap, to begin the cycle again.

The kitchen is built to commercial standards enabling first-class teaching for 19 students (with visiting Michelin-starred chefs) or private hire and use. A handy serving hatch enables out-of-hours use for community gatherings and festivals.

An energetic teacher, Tom, championed the process and fundraised tirelessly. Heat Island won the bid to design the new building, which was co-designed with Tom and the students, drawing it out at 1:1 on site so they could try it out for size.

The project team negotiated a very tight budget, a constrained site contaminated with asbestos and high potential of Second World War bombs. The pandemic and associated school and site closures created additional pressures, requiring flexibility and sensitive management of working relationships to ensure the quality final outcome.

The kitchen has low-impact steel screw pile foundations which reduce spoil and remain demountable (simply screw them out). The timber structure, cladding and mineral wool insulation is equally demountable should the school’s needs ever change.

The form of the building takes cues from medieval abbot’s kitchens, with a distinctive lantern chimney providing natural daylighting, ventilation and a friendly character.