Hythe architect Cheney Thorpe & Morrison contributes to imaginative school design with St Augustine鈥檚
A primary school shaped like a wave has opened high above the Kent seafront. At St Augustine鈥檚 School in Hythe, an aluminium roof curves down over a single-storey building and projects forwards in rounded eaves and louvres.
As well as expressing the sea, the arrangement gives every classroom a panorama of water and coastline, and the projecting eaves and louvres shade them from the sun.
The seaward face is lifted on a plinth faced in gabion baskets and filled with beach stones. The gabion wall continues the coastal theme while subtly protecting the school from break-ins.
The classrooms are linked on the north side by a wide undulating corridor. Alcoves projecting from the classrooms into the corridor can be opened up to either side by means of sliding doors.
The school has a high thermal mass to reduce temperature fluctuations and underfloor heating pipes can be switched in summer to channel cool recycled rainwater stored in underground tanks.
The 拢3m school was designed by local architect Cheney Thorpe & Morrison for the Archdiocese of Southwark and delivered on time and budget. It was built at a cost of 拢1400/m2 by GSE Construction of Ashford, with Gary Gabriel & Associates of Sevenoaks as structural engineer and Stephen Nixon & Associates of Ashford as services engineer and Banks Woods & Partners as QS.
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