Rivers Academy West London, Feltham Education Building, Project

Rivers Academy, London : Feltham Building

Education Development in England design by Jonathan Clark Architects, UK

23 May 2013

Rivers Academy London

Location: Feltham, London TW14

Design: Jonathan Clark Architects

This is a new steel-framed single storey pavilion building with a cantilevered roof canopy.

image from architects

The main objective here was to add a completely new, modern and welcoming administration and reception area in front of the existing entrance to suit the size of the school today and better encourage parents to access the school and facilitate dealing with visitors. To help achieve this, we injected more feeling of light and colour in order to enhance natural lighting as well as designing a lighting scheme that enhances all features after dark.

image from architects

The new building is connected to the existing by a minimally framed glazed link that just ‘touches’ the existing building. The idea being that as you pass through the new building and into the glazed link, you are still able to see the entire existing façade due to the transparency of the new link. We also remodelled the existing foyer space and provided new meeting rooms and a teacher training facility within the existing building.

images from architects

The central raised flat roofed ‘portico’ roof structure is supported on timber-clad columns that reference the materials and colours of the library building that we designed for the same school – previously named Longford Community School. The roof overhangs are very important to control direct sunlight and for the thermal performance of the building.

We designed a Trespa clad structure that sits on top of the existing building frontage and acts a kind of signage ‘beacon’ particularly after dark when it is lit up.

images from architects

All internal furniture (except chairs) was purpose designed by us.

“Your building made the most fantastic impression on our new parents and students last night. The students were so excited as they walked down the drive. We had so many comments about it – how professional, business like and welcoming it is. It has absolutely hit the right note and is completely on-brief in terms of the modern, transparent, welcoming, professional reception that I wanted everyone to experience. I think it’s the most impressive entrance to a school I’ve ever seen. I love it!”
Paula Kenning, Principal Rivers Academy West London

London School of Economics New Students Centre Design Competition information from Jonathan Clark Architects

Address: Tachbrook Road, Feltham, Middlesex, TW14 9PE

London, England, UK