‘BOATS AND CRAFTS' SCHOOL

by Lilia Stefanova

‘Boats and Crafts' is a single intake primary school in Lambeth based on medieval inspired innovative teaching approaches, principles of sustainable city development and the idea that the building itself can support learning by acting as a ‘third teacher’. The design is informed by boat-building construction methods, and the organic forms of Doshi’s Ni Gufa project at CEPT in Ahmedabad. Each classroom consists of an ovoid main teaching space, with workshop, sanitary and entrance spaces to the side. The interiors evoke the sense of an sea-faring adventure with the secondary spaces as stops along the way. Rammed earth and timber frame are used for the secondary spaces, with the main classroom spaces constructed used boat-building techniques. Copper shingles reveal the different scales of weathering, and shading operated by the school children themselves supports learning about their environment.