IF_DO has completed a contextually sensitive sixth form centre at St Teresa’s School in Surrey

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Charles Hosea

Designed by IF_DO, the new Sixth Form Centre at St Teresa’s School in Effingham, Surrey, comprises eight tutorial classrooms, a study library, common room, offices, and state-of-the-art, 120-person lecture theatre. The 657-square-metre scheme is located in the green belt of the Surrey Hills, an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. Sited adjacent to woodland in the north-east corner of the school campus, the two-storey building is the first phase of a 10-year masterplan aimed at improving the school’s built fabric and reconnecting the primary teaching areas to the natural landscape.

The masterplan is driven by a collegiate style and envisages a network of colonnades and courtyards that stitch together disparate facilities on the campus, explains the architect. The Sixth Form Centre embodies these principles, with the creation of a new sixth form quad with courtyards at the centre of the plan and colonnaded walkways integrated into the building.

The building comprises two distinct elements: a teaching block and lecture theatre. A covered link joins the structures and acts as the main entry point and circulation space. It also provides a clear visual connection from the quad to the woodland beyond. A double-height ‘light box’ houses the main staircase, while a lower 8×8 metre square space features a large silver birch tree at its centre.

Nature pervades the entire scheme, from the formal courtyards to the outdoor woodland classroom, and tree growing through the roof canopy at the centre of the plan. The scheme also includes a sequence of elements that are designed to harness the site’s under-utilised green spaces. On the west side of the plan, two floors of classrooms look out over the Sixth Form Quad, with the covered external circulation providing solar shading to the south-facing glazing.

The common room and reading room are located at the eastern end of the building overlooking the adjacent woodland. At first-floor level, the reading room elevates students into the woodland canopy of the surrounding trees and the silver birch tree at the centre of the building, creating a calming and focussed space for study. The ground floor common room faces onto a large south-facing patio, which provides views along the western edge of the old walled garden. Located to the south of the teaching block, the lecture theatre incorporates full-width glazing, providing a window onto the woodland and a scenic backdrop to the stage.

A limited budget led the practice to investigate modern methods of construction. The building is largely constructed from prefabricated structural insulated panels (SIPs), with a lightweight steel frame and glulam beams to form the larger spans over the central canopy and lecture theatre. A fabric-first approach was adopted, with high levels of insulation and a heat-recovery ventilation system to minimise heat loss. A 320-square-metre photovoltaic array covering the roofs of both blocks, will generate sufficient electricity to power both the lighting and heating systems, as well as feeding back to the rest of the school in summer months. As an extension of the ongoing student engagement in the build, a digital screen in the main entrance will display levels of power consumption and generation by the building, providing a tangible demonstration of energy usage to the pupils.

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