Feilden Fowles Architects

The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre

The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre
© David Grandorge

The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre

Feilden Fowles

ARCHITECTS
Feilden Fowles

PHOTOS
David Grandorge (8)

STATUS
Built

BUDGET
$1M - 5M

SIZE
5000 sqft - 10,000 sqft

YEAR
2014

LOCATION
Yeovil, United Kingdom

TYPE
Cultural › Hall/Theater, Educational › Elementary School

The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre is a new building in the campus of Hazlegrove Preparatory School in Yeovil, Somerset, designed by Feilden Fowles.

The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre
© David Grandorge
The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre
© David Grandorge

The new centre embodies the school’s ambition to instil a love of learning, enquiry and intellectual rigour, by providing flexible teaching and learning spaces in an innovative arrangement to encourage independent learning.

Located at the end of two key axes in the school campus, the brick building and surrounding external courtyard creates a new academic hub at the heart of the school’s Grade II listed campus.

The design is informed by the research work of educational theorist Bart McGettrick, who was consulted early on in the design process shortly after Feilden Fowles’s appointment in 2012.

The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre
© David Grandorge
The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre
© David Grandorge

This led to the exploration of ecclesiastical and monastic typologies, which are widely accepted as successful spatial models for education.

The result is classrooms and break out spaces designed around a large central resource space, in which students can work in small groups and use resources outside the classroom context whilst being passively supervised.

The flexible spatial configuration, degree of visual transparency and acoustic control combine to ensure a successful balance between more traditional classroom environments and the open resource space.The building is designed in a contemporary idiom, in a style and materialisation harmonious with the original school building.

The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre
© David Grandorge
The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre
© David Grandorge

Adopting a classical formality, the façade aims to establish a civic presence and emphasise the role of the courtyard in front. Its sequencing of entrance courtyard and colonnade has a precedent in iconic buildings of the past including Schinkel’s Altes Museum.

The new timber canopy to the Woodlands block and pre-cast colonnade of Fitzjames provide covered external break-out space whilst bringing a sense of unity and civic presence to the courtyard.

The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre
© David Grandorge


The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre
The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre
The Fitzjames Teaching and Learning Centre

Feilden Fowles Architects
T +44 20 70334594
Feilden Fowles Architects
8 Royal St, London SE1 7LL, United Kingdom