Park View School

Birmingham, United Kingdom

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Park View School

Birmingham, United Kingdom

Firm

Haworth Tompkins

Type

Educational › Elementary School

STATUS

Built

YEAR

2012

BUDGET

$10M - 50M

Park View Secondary School in Birmingham has been radically transformed by architects Haworth Tompkins as part of the Building Schools for the Future programme, providing a template for low-cost interventions in schools across the country.
The school is situated in inner-city Alum Rock, the 3rd most deprived area of Birmingham with a predominantly Muslim population. Results have improved dramatically in recent years, going from 4% of pupils gaining five or more A-C grades at GCSE in the late 1990s to 72% in 2011.
The site was a collage of buildings dating from the 1960s onwards, most of which were in poor condition and suffered a variety of problems including bad connections, overcrowded corridors and a lack of daylight. Haworth Tompkins were selected to rebuild and rejuvenate the entire school on a tight budget.
A new circulation spine connects the many disparate elements and a previously inaccessible courtyard has been transformed by larch-clad covered walkways to create a sheltered, collegiate atmosphere. This new ‘Quad’ is a shared amenity that can be used to meet, pray, study and dine.
The choice of timber is multi-layered: It provides an attractive, robust, maintenance free enclosure, and its organic nature contrasts with the tough urbanity of the surrounding buildings.
Internally, the narrow corridors have been opened up creating breakout areas, or ‘social learning zones’, around which staff offices are located. These reduce congestion, increase passive supervision and allow daylight into the space, in addition to creating informal learning spaces outside of the classroom.
A new full-size, timber-lined sports hall is flooded with natural light from the tall clerestory that runs around all four sides. Above the changing rooms a ‘market place’ has been created as part of a collaboration with Catherine Greig at Make:Good. Pupils operate the shops as part of a business club, learning about entrepreneurship and gaining practical experience.
The new interventions create a strong identity for the school, distinct from the existing fabric, yet carefully integrated to unify the whole campus.
Graham Haworth, Director at Haworth Tompkins said:
“Park View School was in many ways typical of schools in the UK and shared many common problems. This project demonstrates that by working with the existing building stock, ‘de-silting’ it, introducing creative additions, and making simple but thoughtful improvements to the whole, a first class learning environment can be created to reflect the academic excellence this school has achieved.”
Lindsey Clark, Head teacher at Park View School said:
“The new spaces by Haworth Tompkins have transformed the teaching at the school, which is already yielding results. Pupils have been empowered to learn outside the confines of the traditional classroom and teachers have a new cohesion across departments”