UPFRONT
REVAMP OF NATUREFOCUSED PRIMARY SCHOOL CREATES ADDITIONAL PUPIL PLACES Hundreds of new primary school places have been created from the extensive refurbishment and expansion of Nanaksar Primary School in Hillingdon, west London.
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anaksar Primary School is part of the Guru Nanak Multi-Academy Trust, which has an exceptional track record of establishing successful schools. Its Founder – Sant Baba Amar Singh Ji – believes that education is a human right for children, and has established 19 schools worldwide, including the UKbased Guru Nanak Sikh Academy and Nanaksar Primary School. These schools aspire to provide the highest standard of education for all pupils. Designed by architecture firm CPMG Architects, and delivered by contractor Bowmer + Kirkland, the £14m project includes new, purpose-built facilities to accommodate up to 840 pupils across all primary years. The new school space – built for the Department of Education – provides a warm, friendly and inclusive environment, accompanied by excellent outdoor sporting, social and learning spaces. Externally, the school’s designs make use of traditional brickwork in an understated and contemporary way to create a light and welcoming visual appearance that balances a fresh and independent identity for the school. However, it is the specific elements of the school’s teaching ethos and how the new designs reflect this that set the school apart.
Reflecting the school’s unique curriculum focus Maximising the outdoor curriculum is of particular importance for the new Nanaksar Primary School, with a close focus on maximising the opportunities for horticulture and outdoor learning. In turn, this approach to horticulture has been reflected in the school’s design and layout, providing invaluable space for learning about plants and plant care, along with the production of fruit and vegetables as healthy food choices.
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This starts with the three-storey massing, which ensures that external social and learning space is maximised, while also staying in keeping with the adjacent secondary school facilities. The new school designs also feature a generouslysized greenhouse for pupils to make use of, along with a series of raised beds designed for cultivation – something that is not typically critical to a primary school design brief. The tapering geometry of the southern tip of the existing site created an awkwardly-shaped area.
This area, rather than creating dead space, has been maximised with the creation of a new orchard. This offers additional opportunity to further broaden the horticultural emphasis of the school and is located to provide that valuable asset offering to the wider Guru Nanak Sihk Academy site to support the secondary school too. In addition, as the orchard matures, it will become an important extension to the existing woodland within the Minet Country Park, benefitting the wider area with expanded ecological corridors and greater biodiversity.
