award winning architects

Monday, 11 April 2011 00:00

2011_jamescapitalreviewfinalreport_cover3

STL comment - the Sebastian James ‘Review of Education Capital’ 11th April 2011

Following the long awaited James’ Review and the unsurprising conclusion that BSF was costly, time wasteful and overly complex, the Review indicates that the solution is to streamline, standardise and shorten the thinking time that we so desperately need to conserve.

As architects with a great deal of experience in designing school buildings, many of the principal messages contained in the Review of Education Capital are ones that we have been echoing for some time.

We support the notion that has been expressed by a number of colleagues in the construction industry that we have been bamboozled by ‘transformational’ ideologies that have resulted in every new school in the country being created as a bespoke entity, moulded around the very specific requirements of the attendant leadership team. This has undoubtedly created a great number of distinctive school buildings, but our skills as architects need to concentrate on a more focused set of goals; consolidation, efficiency and the creation of simple, repeatable spaces for exploration and learning.

However it is unclear from the Report, what level of standardisation is proposed. There is reference to ‘codifying... established best practice for eg. a science lab, a resistant material lab and a toilet block’ which can only help the current process of designing this from scratch with each school every time, as Ruth Reed suggests. If this goes further, however, and the arrangement of layouts and adjacencies are strictly standardised, as well as external appearance, it is unlikely that a school or Local Authority will get a building that responds to their needs and local context. We are also not clear how this will work with significant levels of refurbishment.

The notional extra capital promised for every 20th project to ‘introduce some more radical ideas into a project’ so that innovation is not stifled is an ambiguous suggestion that needs clarification.

Contrary to the emphasis of the report, we are sure that the environment in which we learn DOES affect our behaviour and how engaged we are with the learning process – this is observed in well designed ‘good’ environments across the rest of society... so why does this suddenly not contribute to the places our children spend more time in than any other?

Sebastian James’ view of the school estate as a large ‘company’, who should be managed in a top down, dictatorial fashion may be a difficult pill for Mr. Gove’s new army of dedicated academy Principals promised ‘new freedoms’ to swallow...

David Hunter, Chris Jones, Caroline Mayes