Pilot number 1: The First Design Meeting
Today I attended a design meeting with Milton Keynes Design and Development at a place called Hazely School. This is a new school in Milton Keynes. Phase 1 is completed, with the teachers and kids moving in from Septemberr, but Phase 2 and phase 3 are yet to be built. So although the school feels brand new, it also feels unfinished. Some bits open, some bits closed off. Anyway it's a nice modern, spacious school, with a great view of the city from the roof.
The meeting was to decide, given the the experiences of phase 1, how best to go forward with phases 2 and 3. There were 11 people at the meeting, five from the council architect offices, three from the school (including the head and deputy head) and three from the local education authority. It took place in a small temporary music classroom around an oval table.
The architects had arrived at a number of options in a morning meeting, but didn't want to discuss these as they were all too expensive. Instead the focus of the meeting was on "priority setting". There were familiar discussions. The school felt the corridors had too many nooks and cranies for the kids to hide in. 'Policing' was mentioned quite often. CCTV was mentioned, but the school didn't want it to "feel like a prison". The narrow corridors had caused circulation problems so the corridors needed to be wider in the phase 2 development. This in turn would be more space, which would be more cost, which would have to be taken off elsewhere. A quick calculation of the extra width was £350,000. Another problem was the lack of space for the children to go when it was raining and it was thought an 'atrium' solution for the new corridor would be useful, the corridor opening up into a 'funnel' shape. Another solution proposed were outside 'tensile structures' which were cheap. Locker space was also an issue, on the one hand almost every student should have a locker, but at the same time the lockers shouldn't encrouch on existing space.
So the meeting lasted about an hour and a half discussing these kinds of mainly practical things. I was struck by the different languages being spoken. The langauge of the here and now, of practical problems and niggly issues. And the langauge of phase 2 and phase 3, of how the future could fit in with the present. And lurking in the background are the cost implications, the 'spending profiles' of the education authority.
After the meeting the architects showed me around the school, and in many ways the meeting continued. The architects didn't like the colours that the deputy head had chosen (a pale 'hospital' green). The contractors for phase 1 had not done a good job and would not be doing phases 2 and 3.
I wondered how much there was to analyse in the meeting itself, but now I'm writing these notes, I realise there was quite a bit. There were also absences, there was not much reference to other buildings or other schools. And there wasn't much uncritical consideration of possibilities. I thought that words like 'funnel' or 'atrium' might be explored a bit but they weren't. There was very much an if..then structure to the discussion; 'if you do that, then this will happen'. But schools are a good topic for the layresearcher. There wasn't too much jargon, and the issues discussed, being mainly practical, were done so in a very straightforward language.
The room would have been difficult to film in. We walked into the room with half the people already there, so there would have been no setting up time. There was hardly any space around the backs of chairs, and the ceiling was quite low. So mounting cameras might have been difficult. But four cameras would have captured a fair proportion of the meeting. And without a lot of questioning I came away with a pretty good understanding of the individuals involved. There was generally one person speaking at a time, and only a couple of times did a simultaneous conversations break out, but I had the feeling that the formality of 11 people meant that the discussion didn't flow as easily as it could have. 11 people was really too many. Our agreed limit of 7 would have been fine.
Most people had their own notebooks with them, with no computers in sight. The architects had drawings rolled up, and distributed a rough sketch of an outline solution. Everyone stayed seated throughout. And there was lovely carrot cake!
The meeting was to decide, given the the experiences of phase 1, how best to go forward with phases 2 and 3. There were 11 people at the meeting, five from the council architect offices, three from the school (including the head and deputy head) and three from the local education authority. It took place in a small temporary music classroom around an oval table.
The architects had arrived at a number of options in a morning meeting, but didn't want to discuss these as they were all too expensive. Instead the focus of the meeting was on "priority setting". There were familiar discussions. The school felt the corridors had too many nooks and cranies for the kids to hide in. 'Policing' was mentioned quite often. CCTV was mentioned, but the school didn't want it to "feel like a prison". The narrow corridors had caused circulation problems so the corridors needed to be wider in the phase 2 development. This in turn would be more space, which would be more cost, which would have to be taken off elsewhere. A quick calculation of the extra width was £350,000. Another problem was the lack of space for the children to go when it was raining and it was thought an 'atrium' solution for the new corridor would be useful, the corridor opening up into a 'funnel' shape. Another solution proposed were outside 'tensile structures' which were cheap. Locker space was also an issue, on the one hand almost every student should have a locker, but at the same time the lockers shouldn't encrouch on existing space.
So the meeting lasted about an hour and a half discussing these kinds of mainly practical things. I was struck by the different languages being spoken. The langauge of the here and now, of practical problems and niggly issues. And the langauge of phase 2 and phase 3, of how the future could fit in with the present. And lurking in the background are the cost implications, the 'spending profiles' of the education authority.
After the meeting the architects showed me around the school, and in many ways the meeting continued. The architects didn't like the colours that the deputy head had chosen (a pale 'hospital' green). The contractors for phase 1 had not done a good job and would not be doing phases 2 and 3.
I wondered how much there was to analyse in the meeting itself, but now I'm writing these notes, I realise there was quite a bit. There were also absences, there was not much reference to other buildings or other schools. And there wasn't much uncritical consideration of possibilities. I thought that words like 'funnel' or 'atrium' might be explored a bit but they weren't. There was very much an if..then structure to the discussion; 'if you do that, then this will happen'. But schools are a good topic for the layresearcher. There wasn't too much jargon, and the issues discussed, being mainly practical, were done so in a very straightforward language.
The room would have been difficult to film in. We walked into the room with half the people already there, so there would have been no setting up time. There was hardly any space around the backs of chairs, and the ceiling was quite low. So mounting cameras might have been difficult. But four cameras would have captured a fair proportion of the meeting. And without a lot of questioning I came away with a pretty good understanding of the individuals involved. There was generally one person speaking at a time, and only a couple of times did a simultaneous conversations break out, but I had the feeling that the formality of 11 people meant that the discussion didn't flow as easily as it could have. 11 people was really too many. Our agreed limit of 7 would have been fine.
Most people had their own notebooks with them, with no computers in sight. The architects had drawings rolled up, and distributed a rough sketch of an outline solution. Everyone stayed seated throughout. And there was lovely carrot cake!
posted by Peter Lloyd at 4:21 PM
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