Alfriston Dining Hall

Location: Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire

Year: 2023

Description: Alfriston school, a maintained special needs school for girls aged 11 – 18, has day places for 150 pupils and provides residential care for 20 pupils via an in-site boarding school. All pupils have some degree of learning difficulty, and most have additional difficulties. The school’s aim is to ‘prepare pupils for integration into the wider community, able to enjoy and participate in life as contributing adults.’

The existing dining facilities of the school were inadequate, and as a result, the school required a new dining hall to provide a positive and healthy environment for the enjoyment of good food. Alongside this, the proposed space aimed to provide opportunities for education and learning in relation to food and social eating development.

Concept

The brief given by the client was used to identify the core concepts that were to be promoted through the scheme.

Programme

Project Brief

The school campus is made up of a series of buildings, all with pitched roofs and set out on both sides of a main central spine, running west to east. The main school teaching and residential building and associated playgrounds are to the south. A series of specialist buildings border the northern edge of this axis, including a 2-storey performing arts building, a gym and recently constructed swimming pool.

The school required a new dining hall to promote a positive, good food culture. Set within beautiful grounds the building would provide a real food experience for the enjoyment of dining for both pleasure and education.

Project Themes

Initial concepts we're extrapolated to identify key on-site activities that can be adopted to support themes of community, well-being and nature.

Spatial Adjacencies

The proposal encroaches on the green belt. Although the principle of certain development within the green belt is accepted, it is more complicated to gain consent. In this case, the site is located on the edge of the green belt. The development proposal was carefully justified, with particular consideration given to the impact on the adjacent AONB. Building Bulletin Area Guidelines and Schedule of Accommodation tools were used to rationalise the project programme and produce an initial spatial relationships plan which fulfilled the brief whilst remaining conscientious of the site’s immediate context.

Key Spatial Connection

Access to External Space

Community Space

Well-being Space

Nature Space

External Space

Massing

The brief set out the required accommodation which was categorised into two key areas:

• Back of House (BOH)- entrance, kitchens, catering spaces

• Front of House (FOH)- dining, social and conference spaces

Emerging Armature Plan

The single storey back-of-house volume sits down below the pool windows and the dining wing sits taller but rotated to protect the framed views from the pool.

The rotated dining wing wraps a forecourt at the entrance of the dining building which serves as an access for vehicular deliveries. The level changes are negotiated with landscaped tiered slopes, to be used as seating for spectating sport or social gatherings.

The dining hall is a double height space, with a calm and soothing timber lining, soft acoustics, filtered daylight and views through the trees to the countryside beyond.

Key

1. Existing Swimming Pool

2. Entrance Lobby

3. Dining Hall (Double Height)

4. Kitchen

5. Office

6. Store

7. Balcony (Above)