© Simon Wilson
© Simon Wilson
© Paul Harries
© Simon Wilson
Redhill Nursery
BCHN Architects
A distinctive new nursery designed by BCHN Architects to encapsulate an existing safe green play space in the grounds of Redhill Primary Academy on Gatcombe Way in Priorslee, a suburb of Telford.
The new facility for 50 children replaces a dated prefabricated nursery, which was demolished as part of the project. The development includes indoor and outdoor teaching spaces, storeroom, toilet, cloakroom, reception, meeting room, staff room and plant room.
The nursery has been designed as a discrete building within the school site with a series of architectural references to the main school building and nearby street scene.
The building has been designed as a single storey building with an external skin of buff brick above a grey brick plinth line. The buff brick is a nod to the existing school but designed in a contemporary style with vertical brickwork ribs providing relief to the wall plane at the main entrance and facing the car park.
A transparent glass lantern sits upon a sculptured asymmetrical pyramid roof, which provides natural ventilation and light into the nursery space below. Standing seams across the roof reference the roof of the existing curved extension of the main primary school building.
A timber pergola with a glazed canopy and galvanised steel detailing provides a soft, natural external canopy for sheltered external play and teaching that can be used all year round. The canopy also provides a transition zone from the building to the external landscape. To provide a softer, natural finish, which also helps to integrate the building with the outside landscape that includes new planting.
USE OF GALVANIZING
The main timber pergola structure has been designed to be demountable and therefore the use a steel flitch plates combined with the glulam timber structure was chosen. The flitch plates including the crucifix formed steel shoes to the pergola are galvanized. The glazed canopy attaches to the timber pergola via an intermediate galvanised steel structure to visually lighten the pergola. Part of the canopy to the south is made from galvanised 8mm thick steel sheets fixed back to an exposed galvanised continuous pressed steel gutter. Galvanizing was chosen for demountability, durability and sustainable corrosion protection.
The main structure of the building is steel frame with SFS build-up made from galvanised steel proprietary components together with the galvanised steel purlins.
Photographs © Simon Wilson & Paul Harries