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Quayside School

Part 2 Project 2003
Alice Fung
 University of Bath | UK
When thinking about the significance of the school in today’s society I decided to look beyond the standard parameters one might consider and design a school that intentionally allowed for flexibility within the framework of both the educational programme and the spatial arrangement. The education of children today cannot be pigeon holed within impenetrable and finite parameters. Instead I attempted to design a school where the building programme allows for the appropriation of territory so that the student can develop levels of responsibility and social awareness outside the structured curriculum. The rigidity of the institution is softened through the buildings translucent materiality.


The project was intended as a critique of the government's school programme. Alice’s project was important for the emphasis it put on the experience of being at school. The project tries to develop the relationship that a school has with its constituency.

It seems very optimistic and powerful that such an appropriate atmosphere could emerge from a strategy that relied on marshalling existing resources on the site as much as it did on new form.

The final project has a light, cloud like quality to it using simple technologies and forms: every new structure only makes sense in relation to an existing one.

2003
Aerial site photo. The site is Princes Wharf car park in Bristol. The site is a metaphoric island, bypassed by traffic moving in an out of the city.
Site photos. The south boundary is lined with light industrial steel frame warehouses: each shed a collage of materials that have passed through the site.
site fragments The site has an industrial history that is still evident in the industrial scale of its spaces and objects. There remains on the site, fragments of turning circles, cranes, warehouses and train tracks.
Site interpretation. The emptiness appears to bleed between the building volumes knitting it into the surrounding fabric. As the site of a school it might provide links with the housing area.
Studying the site in its urban context it became interesting to explore themes of containment and freedom within an urban-sited school. With inspiration taken from the existing structures on the site I began to see the school itself as a thickness.
Although the warehouses stand in a line to separate the bustle of the road from the site, the masses of the buildings themselves seem malleable in the clerestory’s and ramps that contribute to their edges.
Courtyard spaces are inserted into the threshold and the idea of the boundary is changed. The line of the school fence becomes blurred to allow a conversation with the community that stretches beyond the school as “institution”.
The structure of the school is a combination of the existing frame of the warehouses and the insertion of newer sheds. A new lightweight greenhouse typology is inserted under the umbrella of the existing warehouse structure.
A site plan of the proposed school design. The interstitial space between the existing and proposed sheds allows for student territory.
Section through the assembly hall and elevation of proposed polycarbonate clad buildings.
A structural model showing the adaptation of existing structures and the insertion of a new structure.
Interior view of the covered walkway space between existing and proposed volumes.Buildings are clad in corrugated metal sheeting and polycarbonate panels to create a sense of transparency.
Interior view of the covered walkway space between existing and proposed volumes. Buildings are clad in corrugated metal sheeting and polycarbonate panels to create a sense of transparency.
The walkway is constructed lightly of a wire mesh to enhance a vertical as well as horizontal openness. This space is external but sheltered and can be used as an extension to the teaching areas.
South elevation of design proposal. This shows the adaptation of the existing façade. The language is borrowed from the site, piecing together found objects to create a new façade.
South elevation of structural model.
South elevation of courtyard space at ground level. The polycarbonate materiality visually blurs activity on either side creating a live façade.
View through the walkway space into the roadside courtyard. This space demonstrates the idea of the school as a thick boundary.
View of internal courtyard that leads onto classrooms.
View of the tuckshop. The positioning of this space was designed as a break in the east boundary, as a visual surprise on passers by.
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