The Background

Moreton School and Westcroft Special School are two schools going through the Wolverhampton Building Schools for the Future programme. Prior to their engagement with technical advisors and architects, Flywheel was asked to develop two strategic educational design briefs to support spatial innovation around future learning experiences, against a backdrop of significant cuts to the programme.

The Brief

Translate the aspirations for future educational delivery and learning experience into a set of key design principles and spaces that underpin the accommodation schedule and thus design of the schools.

Our Process

The Outcomes

Highlights of our design strategy included:

• Designs across two schools supporting a wide range of learner needs, from highly independent and socially able to significant learning difficulties.

• A broad but focussed range of learning spaces, moving beyond the classroom as the default mode of delivery, including (for secondary) space that supports research based tasks, independent and small group activities as opposed to class based activity, also acting as social areas where learners can mix with peers; space that allows learners to work flexibly in a large range of group sizes, and also supports staff in experimenting with teach teaching approaches, and the development of sanctuary spaces as both formal spaces for quiet or withdrawal time, and informal enclosed and semi private environments for mentoring or sorting out personal issues.

• A zonal approach to spatial adjacencies focussing on horizontal mini-hubs (for the special school) and interdisciplinary faculties (for the secondary school).

• An activity based learning studio as the core learning space for the special school.