Our final second year design project asked us to design a small primary school on the edge of Edinburgh’s UNESCO World Heritage Site. The brief called for a school of seven classrooms with three large hall spaces, offices, a library and plant rooms. to be accommodated on a long narrow site which ran down a very steep slope. This presented the biggest problem as the regimented modular accommodation blocks enforced by the brief had to be fitted onto a site that seemed to favour a more fluid arraignment of space given its gradient change and limited space.

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My solution to the problem posed by the site was to design a large roof structure that replicated the landfall of the original site. The roof disguised the arraignment of spaces below which had been placed where the slope had been excavated which provided the opportunity to lay out the accommodation rational  without having to deal with the site’s gradient. The spaces are arranged over two levels with the classrooms, offices and library located on the upper level which is accessed from Gloucester Street, with the assembly/gym hall on the ground floor accessed from India Place.

The roof is a triangulated concrete construction that is ‘draped’ over the top of the spaces to hide the regimented layout of accommodation and ground the building with its site. The roof slopes with the original slope of the site to emphasise the importance of landscape in section to the site. The roof also acts as the school’s playground and is fully turfed creating a large green-space for children to play on. Each classroom also has access to the roof playground and it’s own outdoor learning space built into the roof.