Trumpington Community College Development, Cambridge Education Project, England, Architect

Trumpington Community College, Cambridge

Cambridgeshire Education Project, Southeast England, UK – design by Avanti Architects

23 Apr 2013

Trumpington Community College Development

Design: Avanti Architects

Location: Cambridgeshire, Southeast England, UK

Planning approval for Avanti Architects’ Trumpington Community College

Avanti Architects’ design for the first new secondary school in Cambridge for 50 years has just been approved by Cambridge City Council.

image from architects

Andrew Hutchinson, Executive Principal of Parkside Federation Academies, said:
‘We are delighted that our exciting new designs for Trumpington Community College have been approved, and now look forward to getting on with the job of building the new school and community sports centre.’

image from architects

Trumpington Community College will provide places for 750 students and be at the heart of Clay Farm, an urban extension to the south of Cambridge, as 4,000 new homes are built over the next decade.

When the new five-form-entry school – which will specialise in science – opens in September 2015, students will be welcomed into a 21st century learning environment.

The design is compact, with two upper L-shaped floor plates overlapping around a central heart space. Corridors are kept to a minimum and the large open staircase travelling up the building provides informal seating and space for both learning and social activities. On each floor, cellular teaching space is combined with unstructured open-plan areas to provide flexibility in teaching and learning. Spaces can be adapted for different size groups, with opportunities for individual learning.

image from architects

Externally, the wrapped façade echoes the overlapping floor plates. Making the most of the school’s north-south orientation, a science and outside learning terrace faces south. A new public open space – ‘school square’ – facing the school forms part of the Clay Farm masterplan, and a sequence of spaces flows from the square into the building and then out towards the open southern outlook.

The school and sports facilities are interconnected but each has its own identity: the school building is mainly clad in anodised aluminium, while the sports building is articulated as a brick volume.

Trumpington Community College will boast strong sustainability credentials: it has been designed to achieve BREEAM ‘excellent’. Sustainability runs through the whole project – from the masterplan through to the client’s target of 90 per cent of students arriving by bike, foot or public transport.

The building is predominantly naturally ventilated through the central space, with double-sided glazing to classrooms providing good daylighting. Tempered air is brought in through a buried labyrinth, and exposed concrete soffits provide thermal mass for night-time cooling and have pipework embedded, allowing ‘activation’ for adaptation to future climate change. Renewable energy is provided by a ground source heat pump and PVs, and rainwater harvesting is also included.

Amir Ramezani, Director of Avanti Architects, added:
‘Against a background of standardization and austerity, this new school shows how – with the support of a considered client – high-quality, bespoke design can still be delivered through effective consultation with end users – and within public sector budget constraints.’

Avanti Architects was selected to design Trumpington Community College in 2011 from among some 60 other architectural practices.

Trumpington Community College images / information from Avanti Architects

Avanti Architects

Location: Trumpington, Cambridgeshire, Southeast England, UK