School boards

Architectural Review, The, Jan, 1997 by Steven Spier

The school sits parallel to the street, defining a playground space between it and an old school house. (In fact, this east wall is designed to be played against.) While the quiet north side is simply glazed with double-height windows, the street side asserts its presence through colour, a copper clad roof and its massing. Simultaneously, however, it endeavours to be reserved: it matter-of-factly peels back its wooden skin to let one slide inside; it has few openings, and its narrow wooden slats reduce its perceived mass. It hinges itself to the building by annexing the only fully transparent opening on the street facade. The tension is heightened by articulating the entry as a separate element through scale and use of a complementary colour, green to the building's red.

The building appears bipartite from the street though it has a clear ABA rhythm in the plan and cross section, with a corridor separating the classrooms from the staff rooms and library. The exterior skin makes a functionalist reading of the side elevations difficult. The clear organisation is made ambiguous by the centrality of the one and a half storey tall entry hall and its bleeding into the corridor. It is sheltered and calm, illuminated indirectly from the other spaces except for one large window on the street which silently lets in the busy world.

The long section steps considerably to reveal the building's richness. The library, for example, faces the street and is half sunk. Its window is screened by twisting the exterior wooden slats, allowing a wheel's-eye view of passing traffic to adults and of the sky to children. The restrained treatment of the interior, where the architects use materials that one associates with the exterior, namely asphalt tile flooring and exposed concrete, makes it feel surprisingly spacious. Rooms facing outwards in various directions coupled with the split-level corridor generate a centrifugal force that strains against the exterior envelope.

For Burkhalter & Sumi, construction and materials reinforce their interest in the complexities of space and the Gestalt of form.