AYA 2024 shortlists: Education Architect of the Year, sponsored by Swisspearl

Earlier this year BD announced all the architects who made it onto the shortlists for our prestigious annual Architect of the Year Awards.

Now we are shining the spotlight on each category in turn and publishing a selection of the images that impressed the judges.

This year’s judges include: Yẹmí Aládérun, head of development, Meridian Water, Enfield Council; Alexandra Andone, associate director, PRP; Amr Assaad, board director, Buckley Gray Yeoman; Lee Bennett, partner, design chair and school lead, Sheppard Robson; Sarah Cary, chief development officer Imperial College, White City Campus; Irene Craik, director, Levitt Bernstein; Alex Ely, founding director, Mae; Martyn Evans, creative director, LandsecU+I; Gavin Hale-Brown, director, Henley Halebrown; Tanvir Hasan, director emeritus, Donald Insall Associates; Lee Higson, board director, Eric Parry Architects; Nigel Hugill, chief executive, Urban & Civic; Kirsten Lees, managing partner, Grimshaw; Oliver Lowrie, director and founder, Ackroyd Lowrie; Anna Mansfield, director, Publica; Michelle McDowell, non-executive director, Civic; Ian McKnight, founding partner, Hall McKnight; John McRae, director and trustee, Orms; David Partridge, chairman, Related Argent; Sarah Robinson, asociate director, The King’s Foundation; Philippa Simpson, director for buildings and renewal, Barbican Centre; Kevin Singh, head, Manchester School of Architecture; Karl Singporewala, founder, Karl Singporewala Design Bureau; Jonathan Smales, founder and CEO, Human Nature; Elizabeth Smith, chairman and regional director, Purcell; Alan Stanton, principal director, Stanton Williams; Amin Taha, chairperson, Groupwork; Magali Thomson, project lead for placemaking, Great Ormond Street Hospital; Tatiana von Preussen, co-founder and director, vPPR; Jo Wright, director, Perkins&Will.

Today’s shortlist is Education Architect of the Year Award (nursery - 6th form), sponsored by Swisspearl.

AHR

AHR’s entry includes two Passivhaus schools in Fife. One of these, Woodmill and St. Columba’s RC High School, is a Scottish Futures Trust Pathfinder project and is billed as the UK’s largest Passivhaus education building. The practice has also submitted the net zero carbon in operation High School Leckhampton in Gloucestershire, and Silverwood SEND School, a CLT-framed project surrounded by woodland in Wiltshire.

Cottrell and Vermeulen Architecture

Two of the schools in Cottrell and Vermeulen’s entry are integrated into larger ongoing residential masterplans. At Charter School Bermondsey, the practice’s layered, vertical design aimed to provide a contemporary urban exemplar for education. Cable Wharf Primary School is designed for a brownfield site in Ebbsfleet. The entry also features a new library at St Thomas The Apostle and the proposed Queens Building extension at Brentwood School.

Curl la Tourelle Head Architecture

Two schools for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) feature in Curl la Tourelle Head’s submission. Alfreton Park in Derbyshire, a through school for pupils aged 3-19, is designed to be secure, welcoming, and inclusive with a consciously non-institutional feel. In Barnet, Windmill School has been created in a former office building. The entry is completed by an ongoing education centre for the Freshwater Biological Association at Lake Windermere.

Delve

Delve’s entry comprises four nurseries, created variously in a former warehouse, manor house, doctor’s surgery and commercial unit. In all, the practice’s starting point is the children’s perspective on scale, form, interaction, colour and texture. Projects include The Nest, a fit-out of a double-height shell unit in East London into a flagship 300sqm pre-school nursery for Hestia Education. Interventions include a new mezzanine and bespoke metal staircase.

Hawkins\Brown

Three of the four projects in Hawkins\Brown’s entry are state schools. These include St Mary’s Voluntary Catholic Academy in Derby, the first primary to meet the Department for Education’s GenZero and biophilic brief. In London, the practice has completed the City of London Primary Academy Islington and Central Foundation Boys’ School at Old Street, the latter a phased, decade-long redevelopment. The submission is completed by Notting Hill and Ealing Junior School.

Jestico + Whiles

Jestico + Whiles’s entry spans education sectors and continents. In the Cayman Islands, the John Gray High School is the largest in the country, combining new build with retrofit to create a cohesive facility which doubles as a hurricane shelter. In the UK, the submission includes a state primary and secondary (Manor Drive Academy, Peterborough), a further education college (Stanmore College, London) and an independent sector junior school (Royal Russell, Croydon).

jmarchitects

The four Scottish projects in jmarchitects’ entry include Wallyford Learning Campus, the first to be delivered as part of the Scottish Future Trust’s Learning Estate Investment Programme (LEIP). As well as a high school, the £47.2million campus includes adult learning and community facilities. Three ongoing projects include Ardrossan Community Campus, a redevelopment of a coastal oil refinery site in North Ayrshire.

Rivington Street Studio

At Gordonstoun in Elgin, Rivington Street Studio has completed the Queen Elizabeth II Rooms, the first phase of a masterplan for a sustainable classroom village. In sharp contrast, Oasis Academy Silvertown is located on a highly constrained east London site, and is designed as a superblock with outdoor social space at different levels and a roof-top sports pitch. Little Ilford School in Newham has been expanded using off-site modular construction.