Bedales School Art and Design Building is set in an area of outstanding natural beauty on the edge of the South Downs National Park in the village of Steep near Petersfield. Constructed around a substantial and beautiful oak tree within a new court and central lawn, the new Art and Design building has a strong sense of place.
The design of the building draws references from traditional agricultural buildings with clipped gables and simple standing-seam metal roofs, defining a series of connected barn forms. Materials were used in their natural state throughout: a lattice timber screen shelters the entrance canopy and external walkway creating a welcoming gesture on approach to the building.
The layout on the upper floor is a series of carefully scaled open and interconnected north-lit art studios that enable teaching and independent study for a wide range of group sizes and activities. On the ground floor heavier duty craft-based design subjects are taught alongside jewellery and fashion design.
Plans
A connection to the outdoors characterises much of Bedales life, and consequently all circulation is external across covered decks on both sides of the building that double as places to draw, paint, sculpt or just relax and contemplate the environment.
SUSTAINABILITY
Through passive building principles, the new Art and Design building retains the school’s long and close connection to the countryside.
The form and east-west orientation of the five pitched roofs of the new Art and Design building define a series of carefully scaled, north-lit studio spaces within. This maximises natural daylighting and reduces the need for artificial lighting.
In what is otherwise a lightweight building the thermal mass of exposed concrete surfaces contributes to a more stable internal temperature. Timber-slatted screens and the retained large oak tree both provide solar shading in the summer months. Renewable natural materials, including sustainably sourced timber for cladding and wood fibre acoustic panels, reduce the embodied carbon in the construction.
CONTEXT
Since its foundation by John Badley in 1893, creative arts education has been at the heart of this liberal and alternative independent school within the South Downs National Park, in Hampshire. The new Art & Design building sits in the shadow of a 300-year-old oak tree, alongside a range of old barns in which ‘outdoor work’ is taught and students bake bread each week.
CLIENT COMMENTS
“Having benefitted from a high degree of internal and external consultation, our new Art & Design Building stands out as one of the finest buildings in our architecturally rich environment; it is a further reminder of the school’s commitment to creating teaching spaces that are as beautiful as they are useful. The building is a fantastic enhancement to the school’s estate, and its design, broad range of art and design facilities and location have created new opportunities for collaborative working and links with the neighbouring Outdoor Work Department in the Barnyard.”
Keith Budge, Headmaster, Bedales School
“The new Art & Design Building has allowed students to work much more efficiently when doing fashion design as there is now a place for every facility rather than having to jump around floors and especially set up machines when wanting to use them. It has allowed us to take fashion design much further, working more effectively than ever. The ceilings have a wonderful industrial feel and the windows that face Outdoor Work let in great light, to create really inspirational spaces. The new Art & Design Building is outstanding compared with anything else I have seen before at any other school or college.”
Olly Shinder, Sixth Form student, Fashion Design and Art, Bedales School
