A cross-laminated timber link building designed by DK-CM unites two Norfolk academies
Designed by DK-CM, a recently completed link building that joins two formerly separate schools to form a new academy echoes the architecture of the existing brick and concrete structures in cross-laminated timber (CLT).
Wroughton Academies at Gorleston, Great Yarmouth, comprises Infant and Junior schools with a combined capacity of 630 children from the ages of four to 11. DK-CM’s project was designed in part through a series of workshops with the children. “Our aim was to create an environment that the children would have some ownership of, while respecting the existing architecture of the site”, says DK-CM director Cristina Monteiro. “The new building should have an identity but also seem like it was always meant to be there.”
The new reception space is defined by a diagrid timber roof structure, whose triangular geometry is repeated on the floor as a pattern of cool grey-blue and canary yellow. Timber also forms the walls, doors, desk and a series of movable benches, as well as framing two glazed openings at the front and back of the building and a series of clerestory windows. The space can be used simply as a link between the Infants and Juniors school buildings, or as an auditorium-style teaching space.
“On the exterior, the link building mediates between the progressive language of the original junior school, which opened in 1950, and the blockier 1990s infants’ counterpart”, says the architect. “The former is clearly referenced thanks to a series of raking cross-walls that form bays for the large glazed walls on the side of the main entrance. To the rear, the outward appearance becomes more restrained to adhere to the simplified surroundings. The roofline is clad in zinc for weatherproofing but also to pick up on the municipal aesthetic that characterises much post-war school architecture. The look and feel of the original Wroughton school has been recreated in modern materials, which allowed the team to employ extensive off-site construction in order to minimise impacts on the running of the school”.
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