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Marylebone School

• Marylebone High Street, London

  The Gymnasium could not be accommodated above ground nor on adjacent sites, so we proposed locating it beneath the playground with the Art and Music Departments above in a building scaled to its historic context

  Relative to the rest of the school the Gymnasium is vast and has one entire façade glazed to the courtyard. Morning sun penetrates deep into the space during the autumn months and daylight bounces off the concrete walls.

• The school Governors backed the project enthusiastically even though the idea required the removal of a predominantly 18th-century burial ground containing some 3,000 remains including those of Charles Wesley, James Gibbs and George Stubbs.

• Its tiny open areas were previously shared with car parking and littered with Portakabins and sheds. The transformed open spaces have become the social hub of the school.

  In the refurbished Commemorative Gardens facing the street the Methodists hold an annual service to commemorate the important Wesley family shrine now re-located under the new gardens. Design by Todd Longstaffe-Gowan.

• The rusting Coreten cladding and protective screen of the Arts and Music building echoes the rich colouring of the 19th-century red-brick school building seen reflected in the glass.

• The underground structure needed to retain buildings on three sides and keep the water out that sits half way up its sides.

  The main Art and Music building sits above ground with the retaining structure containing the Gymnasium and open courtyard below ground.

  The basement is cooled in the summer and warmed in the winter by the constant temperature of the ground that transfers its free energy through the un-insulated concrete walls. Heating is hardly required, mechanical cooling is not provided.

• The Dance/Drama studios are stacked alongside the gymnasium and accessed on first floor level by a perforated steel gangway from which students can watch the activities in the gymnasium.

  The stair provides a sculptural drama that is greatly enhanced by the theatre of movement at break times.

• Economy was paramount so the necessary concrete retaining structure is molded into a legible hierarchy of architectural components: columns, pilasters, beams, brackets and panels.

  The Concrete soffits are softened by silk-covered acoustic duvets hanging in open steel mesh baskets.

  Materials were lightweight and industrial but detailed to give the impression of a highly bespoke piece of architecture.

• The large below ground open-air courtyard is the environmental engine of the project. It contains the main stair to the Gymnasium but it also collects sun and daylight and funnels buckets of fresh air into the Gymnasium. The whole façade is retractable.

  The Gymnasium is both cooled in the summer and warmed in the winter by the constant temperature of the ground that transfers its free energy through the un-insulated concrete walls. Heating is hardly required, mechanical cooling is not provided.

• RIBA Regional Award 2008
  RIBA National Award 2008
  Concrete Society Building Award 2008
  RIBA Sorrel Foundation School Award 2008 – highly commended
  Structural Steel Award - commendation
  BCIA Award – highly commended
  Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award - finalist

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