Hasta La Ideas

Zaha Hadid Architects have completed this school that bridges a running track in Brixton, south London.

Designed for ARK Education, The Evelyn Grace Academy is organised into four smaller schools that share outdoor spaces and facilities.

The building zig-zags across the site with sports fields tucked between it and the roads on both sides.

Classrooms are organised along wide corridors with occasional double-height halls.

Photographs are by Luke Hayes.

More stories about buildings for education »
More stories about Zaha Hadid Architects »

The following text is from Zaha Hadid Architects:

The Evelyn Grace Academy in Brixton, London Borough of Lambeth, broadens not only the educational diversity of this active and historical part of London but also augments the built environment in a predominantly residential area.

This Academy presents itself as an open, transparent and welcoming addition to the community’s local urban regeneration process.

The strategic location of the site within two main residential arteries naturally lends the built form to be coherent in formation.

The building assumes a strong urban character and identity which is legible to both the local and neighbouring zones.

It offers a learning environment that is spatially reassuring thereby being able to engage the students actively.

The design of the building proffers that, which contemporary architecture can, to create a healthy atmosphere as a milieu for progressive teaching routines.

In keeping with the educational ideology of ‘schools-within-schools’ the design is to creates natural segregation patterns nested within highly functional spaces which give each of the four smaller schools a distinct identity, both internally and externally.

These spaces present generous environs with maximum levels of natural light, ventilation and understated but durable textures.

The collective spaces – shared by all the schools – are planned to encourage social communication within a distinct hierarchy of natural aggregation nodes which weave together the extensive accommodation schedule.

Similarly, the external shared spaces, in order to generate a setting that encourages interaction, are treated in a manner of layering creating informal social and teaching spaces at various levels based on the convergence of multiple functions.

PROGRAM:

Secondary school for 1200 pupils
Building area: 10,745 m

CLIENT:
School trust: ARK Education
Government: DCSF

ARCHITECT:
Zaha Hadid Architects
Design: Zaha Hadid with Patrik Schumacher
Project: DirectorLars Teichmann
Project Architect: Matthew Hardcastle

Project Team: Lars Teichmann, Matthew Hardcastle, Bidisha Sinha, Henning Hansen, Lisamarie Villegas Ambia, Judith Wahle, Enrico Kleinke, Christine Chow, Guy Taylor, Patrick Bedarf, Sang Hilliges, Hoda Nobakhti

Project Manager: Capita Symonds
Engineers: Arup
Quantity Surveyors: Davis Langdon
Landscape: Gross Max
Acoustic Consultant: Sandy Brown Associates
Main Contractor (Design & Build): Mace Plus
Main Contractor’s Architects: Bamber & Reddan

CDM Co-ord: Arup
FF&E: Favourite Cat
Planning consultants: DTZ
Employer’s Agent: EC Harris
Catering Consultant: Winton Nightingale

Above: main elevations. Click above for larger image

Above: sections. Click above for larger image

Above: ground floor. Click above for larger image

Above: first floor. Click above for larger image

Above: second floor. Click above for larger image

Above: third floor. Click above for larger image

Above: depot layout. Click above for larger image

Above: site plan. Click above for larger image

See also:

.

West Buckland School by Rundell Associates	Pestalozzi School by SOMAA	The Langley Academy by Foster + Partners

Autodesk’s Sustainability Workshop is a free online site with short videos to educate viewers on the environmental impacts of design. Right now they’ve got a section up for Intro to Whole Systems design, which encourages viewers to think through the entire lifecycle of a product, and the self-explanatory Intro to Lightweighting and Material Reduction.

While the project was built specifically for mechanical engineering undergraduate students, the team thinks it would also be interesting to industrial design students (who may not get this technical with their sustainability approaches), mechanical engineering and industrial design teachers (who are looking for a quick resources to supplement their already super full curriculum), other young students, and adult engineers and designers who are retooling and learning new tricks.

Says sustainable design strategist Jeremy Faludi, “[The videos] could be used for a design class, or a mechanical engineering class, or even a management class that wants to educate managers about the more technical aspects of sustainability. The combined Whole Systems & Life-Cycle thinking process could potentially be a very powerful tool for designers and business executives to innovate their products and services.”

Check it out here.

(more…)

pobject width=”468″ height=”284″param name=”movie” value=”http://www.youtube.com/v/u6XAPnuFjJchl=en_USfs=1″/paramparam name=”allowFullScreen” value=”true”/paramparam name=”allowscriptaccess” value=”always”/paramembed src=”http://www.youtube.com/v/u6XAPnuFjJchl=en_USfs=1″ type=”application/x-shockwave-flash” allowscriptaccess=”always” allowfullscreen=”true” width=”468″ height=”284″/embed/object/p

pCareer satisfaction, life-work balance, the reality of the changing workplace, and understanding personal goals and priorities has been emotionally draining for many as we surface from the economic crisis./p

pRecently we’ve seen books like ema href=”http://www.amazon.com/Whats-Next-Gen-Keeping-Getting/dp/1422120643″What’s Next Gen X?/a/em, the film ema href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/videos/lemonade_a_short_film_about_creative_unemployment_15648.asp”Lemonade/a/em, 37signals’s ema href=”http://37signals.com/svn/posts/893-workplace-experiments”4 day work week/a/em, Frog’s latest issue of ema href=”http://designmind.frogdesign.com/magazine/work—life/”design mind/a/em, and numerous others explore these issues #8212; and on the flip side #8212; companies large and small are constantly looking at new a href=”http://www.thisisbrandx.com/2010/05/things-look-mighty-perky-around-silicon-valley-and-bay-arae-tech-firms.html”ways/a to attract talent, and retain it!/p

pIn the video above, author a href=”http://www.danpink.com/”Daniel Pink/a cites 50 years worth of behavioral science research demonstrating that money is only a motivating factor to a point for getting good results. After that people seek autonomy, mastery and purpose to be fully productive and indeed happy. emSide note/em #8212; love the animation that accompanies this talk, originally given at the a href=”http://www.thersa.org/events/vision/vision-videos/dan-pink-drive”RSA/a in London, January 2010./p

pemvia a href=”http://joegebbia.posterous.com/what-motivates-you-7″Joe Gebbia/a/em/pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/education/the_surprising_truth_about_what_motivates_us_video_16650.asp”(more…)/a
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9YKaJVBLcwVjsFlJLa_biafy_Rc/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9YKaJVBLcwVjsFlJLa_biafy_Rc/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9YKaJVBLcwVjsFlJLa_biafy_Rc/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/9YKaJVBLcwVjsFlJLa_biafy_Rc/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p

We’ve written (and ghostwritten) our share of speeches, and none is so fraught with peril as the commencement address, a difficult-to-master mix of anecdotes, life lessons, and hope for the bright future that the newly graduated are uniquely equipped to harness and monetize. And so it is with great excitement and some trepidation that we clutched our grubby copy of Easter and awaited the remarks (and post-speech performance) of Patti Smith, who on Monday addressed Pratt Institute’s 121st commencement ceremony and received an honorary degree alongside architect Daniel Libeskind, MoMA director Glenn Lowry, former NYC Landmarks Commissioner Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel, novelist Jonathan Lethem, and director Steven Soderbergh. Reader, she did not disappoint.

Smith opened and closed with dentistry. “I’ve been thinking about what I’d like to talk about: Moby Dick, the slaves of Michelangelo, Hans Hoffman, My Bloody Valentine, but now that I’m here, my greatest urge is speak to you of dental care,” she began. “My generation had a rough go, dentally….You have a better chance at dental health, and I say this because you want at night to be pacing the floor because your muse is burning inside of you, because you want to do your work, because you want to finish that canvas, because you want to make that design, because you want to help your fellow man. You don’t want to be pacing because you need a damn root canal.” The take-home message? “Floss, you know, use salt, baking soda, get them professionally cleaned, you know, for a bit, take care of your damn teeth.”

From there, Smith lauded the graduates for their determination and offered a bit of Pratt-centric personal history (coming to New York, meeting Robert Mapplethorpe, eating and dreaming in the corner diner) before turning to…Pinocchio, that rare combination of mendacity and tenacity. “Pinocchio went out into the world filled with good intentions, with vision, he went ready to do all the things he dreamed, but Pinocchio was pulled this way and that, he was distracted, he faltered, he made mistakes, but he kept on,” she explained. “Pinocchio, in the end, became himself, because the little flame inside him, no matter what crap he went through, would not be extinguished.” Jiminy Cricket went unmentioned, but Smith did conclude with a few pieces of advice, including letting your conscience be your guide. “I’m telling you, these simple things: taking care of your teeth, being happy…they will be your greatest allies. Because when you’re happy, you ignite that little flame that tells you and reminds you who you are, and it will ignite, it will animate your enthusiasm for things. It will enforce your work.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

pIn a shrewd bit of business maneuvering, the ID program at Philadelphia University has gained their students access to a client most graduated designers would dream of being able to snag: Urban Outfitters. The lifestyle retailer has annual sales of nearly $2 billion and has an extremely desirable customer base–college students and recent grads, a young but spendy demographic for whom buying certain “lifestyle” products defines their very identity. Students had an opportunity to pitch product designs which, if selected, could wind up on store shelves in UO. /p

pPhilly’s U’s Industrial Design 202, a.k.a. BUILD Studio, owes much of this access credit to Josh Owen:/p

blockquoteIn the five years since Josh Owen, designer and holder of the Craig R. Benson Chair for Innovation at the university, conceived of BUILD, his students have collaborated with companies in Philadelphia and New York, where commissions are hard to come by for even experienced professional designers.

p…As a working product designer with pieces in the permanent collections of several museums, Owen knows the significance of real-life experience. He conceived of BUILD as a way to impress upon students still in early stages of their design education the importance of what he calls “the compressing world of industrial design.”/p

p”There’s not much separation between design, business, and engineering,” Owen says. “We want students to be aware of and immersed in these realities so they can compete in an increasingly demanding marketplace.”/blockquote/p

pTheir lessons about competing seem to be having an effect–out of 32 sophomore projects presented to Urban Outfitters, the retail giant is reportedly interested in pursuing 18 of them!/p

pRead more about BUILD Studio A HREF=”http://www.philly.com/inquirer/home_design/20100514_Design_students_learn_by_working_with_pros.html#axzz0nuKULb3e” here/A./pa href=”http://www.core77.com/blog/education/philly_us_id_program_providing_students_with_great_connections_16563.asp”(more…)/a
pa href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/TmFU5RI-jLIFPAamFpk4Qr-ql6g/0/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/TmFU5RI-jLIFPAamFpk4Qr-ql6g/0/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/abr/
a href=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/TmFU5RI-jLIFPAamFpk4Qr-ql6g/1/da”img src=”http://feedads.g.doubleclick.net/~a/TmFU5RI-jLIFPAamFpk4Qr-ql6g/1/di” border=”0″ ismap=”true”/img/a/p