Crown Woods College / Nicholas Hare Architects

This new 9-form entry secondary school opened in May 2011 and is organised in three colleges or “schools within a school” with 450 pupils each and there is a post-16 college; again with 450 students.

The design has 9 pavilion buildings linked by external covered walkways. In addition to the colleges (where pupils will spend most of their time learning the core curriculum subjects) the other buildings house the specialist teaching areas such as design/technology, music and sport. The chequer-board arrangement of the buildings on this generous site creates strongly defined courtyards. These make way-finding simple and allow the buildings to have excellent aspects for daylight. The scheme received a Commendation at the 2012 Civic Trust Awards and the jury said “the simple, generous layout has given rise to a calm order yet surprising diversity in the buildings and the spaces within them”. Nicholas Hare Architects won a prestigious RIBA Award for the scheme in June 2012 and were also shortlisted for this year’s New London Awards.