Torriano Infant School Library

Kentish Town, London
Completed 2013
Project Budget: £135.000

The brief was for a new building on Torriano Infant School’s grounds to house the school’s library and to be used as a flexible learning and activity space. The small but challenging site for the new building is an unused play area adjacent to the assembly hall and characterised as a primary circulation route to Year 1 and 2 classrooms at the rear of the school. The site is also defined by two different boundary conditions: an external wall forming part of the Kentish Town Community Centre building to the west and a large chestnut tree on the boundary of a neighbouring rear garden to the south.

The new building consists of a flexible space, library, storage, staff and children’s WCs, and an outdoor area. The corner of the building is made up of a sliding, wrapping glazed wall, which can completely open to allow learning activities from the small internal space to spill out onto the newly created external forecourt, transforming it into an outdoor extension of the classroom.

The internal space receives excellent daylight and natural ventilation with a row of north facing roof windows and high level strip windows along the southern boundary. The exterior of the building is dressed with FSC certified larch cladding.

 

 

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