School Architecture

SCHOOL ARCHITECTURE. Modern school buildings are very different in design from those of the 19th century. It is now recognized that the health and happiness of the children must be the first consideration if they are to take full advantage of the education provided. Consequently, in the latest designs, every effort is made to secure for the children a maximum amount of sunlight and a continuous supply of fresh air, combined with surroundings which are in themselves congenial.

The building regulations

issued by the Board of Education in 1914, required that the classrooms should not be arranged to open directly from a hall, and in some schools erected shortly after the war these requirements were met in a way that dispensed with an intervening corridor, the rooms not used for classroom purposes being placed next the hall.

On the resumption of building work after the war considerable difficulties in respect of labour and materials were experienced, and as a result one-storey schools of light construction were erected. They were more or less experimental in character but from these has been evolved the latest type which might be termed the open-air type of one-storey elementary school. In these, the classrooms have a southern aspect and thorough venti lation is provided so as to secure the maximum amount of sun light and fresh air. Experiments have been made with a view to applying the same principles to the planning of buildings of two and three storeys.

The improvement in cross ventilation has made possible im portant reductions in the heights of rooms. In the Board of Education building regulations (1907) the minimum height of classrooms was laid down as 13 ft. This was reduced in the regulations of 1914 to 12 ft.

Elementary Schools.--The

illustration shows the plan of a one-storey elementary school (boys', girls' and infants' depart ments) on a site sloping to the south. In this plan all the class rooms have a southern aspect. Those on the south side of the open courts are entered from an open verandah ; those on the side exposed to the north, from a low corridor over which cross ventilation to the open air is obtained. The halls are central, isolated, and cross-ventilated. The staff room of the girls' depart ment is placed over that of the boys' department. The height of the classrooms is I I ft.

Secondary Schools.

The requirements of secondary schools are more complex than those of elementary schools, and secondary schools, therefore, present a rather different problem in planning and arrangement. School planning on the lines of the open-air type of elementary school has not yet reached such an advanced stage as regards secondary schools.

It will be seen by comparing the above plans with the plan of an elementary school, that in the secondary school a much larger proportion of the floor area is taken up by rooms for special subjects, e.g., laboratories, art room, gymnasium and manual training room. In a secondary school dining accommodation is gen erally provided but not always in a separate dining room. Some times the assembly hall and gymnasium are combined, but more usually the gymnasium is kept apart and used for its particular purpose whilst the hall is also used as a dining room. The latest tendency in the design of secondary schools is to approximate to that of elementary schools more particularly as regards the class rooms. (G. T. F.) Types of School Buildings.—Originally the school building consisted of a single room or hall. As the schools developed there came into use that treatment of the building having a room in each of the four corners with a hallway through the centre, then came the two storey plan, duplicating the first storey, followed by the three storey building with the third storey containing an assembly hall. These buildings were usually surmounted by a cupola containing the school bell. As the number of pupils in creased the need for more space resulted in the addition of more rooms and there followed diversity of arrangement in the general type of plan. These may be classified as the closed and the open types, the closed type being the solid rectangle, the hollow rectangle and the rectangle with interior auditorium and courts, the open type being in the form of one of the following letters : I, T, U, E or H. In determining the type of plan, consideration should be given to the following factors in the order named: (I) orientation ; (2) natural light and natural ventilation of the class rooms; (3) expansiveness; (4) flexibility; (5) light corridors; (6) effective supervision; (7) reduction of vertical travel.