SPATIAL ORGANISATION

This school aims to recreate the spatial hierarchy found in any typical settlement, moving from large public spaces to ever more intimately scaled private spaces for every-day use.

It is understood that many of the learners attending the school originate from the informal settlement towards the East: providing a school with a well-defined spatial hierarchy will have a positive influence on their learning experience.

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Strong linear axes were formed: Two from the primary and secondary pedestrian entrances and one that transverses these: an internal street that binds all the areas of the school and leads out into the sports field (mimicking a main road of a typical settlement). This clear hierarchy and logic of spatial definition will help make the XXL school easy to navigate to its users and visitors.

Learners will arrive in the “entrance court", defined by the hall, admin and reception, and then move along the “public street”, flanked by specialist classrooms to the various phase’s more intimately scaled courtyards.

A strength of this design is that it offers the learners this clear distinction between the public spaces used by the whole school, and the private courtyard spaces provided for ordinary educational requirements.