Lord Deramore's Primary School, York — Sustainable architecture | creative design | Sheffield | South Yorkshire | Derbyshire | Bespoke residential architecture | Architectural Design

Lord Deramore’s Primary School, York.

Lord Deramore’s Primary School celebrates what can be achieved on a modest budget: pared-down, sensible design delivered with close attention to quality and inventiveness. Replacing a building that was deemed no longer fit for purpose, it was part of the capitally funded stream of the Education Funding Agency (EFA) Priority School Building Program.

The site is within the curtilage of a listed 1856 school building, adjacent to the Greenbelt and within a Conservation Area. The challenge of building a relatively low-budget school in this environment is met by using high-quality durable external materials – red clay and ceramic glazed blue brick, larch weatherboarding and fibre-cement tiling – over a pre-fabricated lightweight steel frame, and by articulating the massing as two distinct elements (a hall and a classroom block). The taller pitched roof volume of the hall emphasises its role as a community asset, set in the context of a family of public village buildings – the church, the existing school, and the new school.

The hall element in particular challenges what can be achieved on a tight budget, achieving an attractive and efficient timber roof using standard lightweight trussed rafters (as typically used in housing) in a novel way, braced with a stressed-skin soffit formed in OSB – an everyday inexpensive product produced from forestry waste.

Lean design principles are followed throughout the design to minimise expense and reduce waste: a compact building envelope, an efficient and well ordered plan, the use of standard building material component sizes as setting out modules - reducing cutting requirements.

Inside, the tight allowance for circulation is maximised by placing the shared teaching resources – including the library at the building’s heart – as open-plan bays that punctuate the central corridor. Natural light is provided by generous rooflights.

Classrooms are grouped according to the age of the children, and are independently accessible from cloakroom lobbies: a pairing of infant classrooms on the south side, foundation adjacent to the forest school, and two pairs of junior classrooms on the north side. Children can be dropped off/picked up directly from their classrooms, while the overall arrangement offers a nurturing sense of progression reflecting the growing independence of the children.

Building envelope u-values are between 24% and 40% betterment over minimum Part L2 standards, with air tightness a 50% improvement at <5.0m3/h.m2. The building is predominantly naturally ventilated, with key spaces utilising augmented natural ventilation technology – where low-power fans achieve ventilation with heat recovery in winter. This saves energy, and reliably controls internal CO2 levels, aiding pupil concentration. These are expressed as “chimneys” enlivening the roofline.