TRANSITION
Swavesey Village College Enhancement programme
1997/9

The Brief

To design and implement a programme of environmental enhancements for Swavesey Village College.

As a focal point for the celebration of the college's 40th anniversary, the work will have a strong sculptural strand, but will also address the need to re-consider the exterior social seating areas. The aim will be to integrate a newly enhanced floorscape with soft landscaping, seating, sculpture and shelter.

Working with a group of year 11 students in the development of the work and liaising with the wider college community, the project will hopefully act as a catalyst for a wider programme of improvements as the college continues to grow into the next millenium.

The Design Process

We started exploring ideas around the theme of 'Transition', chosen to represent the growth and development of the college and the students within it.

We looked at ways of describing the process of Transition in abstract terms to evolve a design that is original, uplifting and flexible enough to include all the functional elements of the brief.

At every stage bearing in mind the scale of the site and the practicalities of how users of the college move around it, we explored ideas through two and three dimensions, we looked at manipulating and weathering materials as part of our design development.

Consultation with the school council, playgroup, and input from a geography landscape design project carried out by year 9 students all contributed to the final designs; as did the vital involvement of the project architect, maintenance representatives from the county council and the landscape architect.

Exciting developments in liaison with Tarmac quarry products have led the floorscape design into new realms, allowing us to look at the possibility of trialing an innovative new product and to explore different approaches

The Design.

The design evolves through a series of disks set into the floorscape, 'growing' into seating, sculpture and finally shelter.

The forms constructed from steel, with terne coated steel and copper, will be scattered around the playground area; starting with a few seating type disks in front of the youth club; a cluster in front of new Art department extension which grows up through their different stages; and three taller structures by the resource centre forming shelter.

As the structures grow taller, they will appear to unfurl with more copper becoming visible. As the structures mature, they will weather and change.

The copper detailing, chosen to co-ordinate with the exterior cladding of the new architecture, will also be reflected in the floorscape, with text inlaid around the circular disks. It is intended the text, and the wider floorscape design to be developed in consultation with Tarmac, will examine the roots of the design, thinking around ideas about continuity and change, the roots, seeds, beginnings. The overall impression will be to build a sense of momentum as you get nearer the school and the playground area - the social hub of the site.

The design aims to enhance the areas where the students naturally gather, and consider the needs of the playgroup who regularly use elements of the site. The arrangement of the structures allow an open and safe environment in front of the youth club, where the playgroup play; a visual focal point as they cluster around the art department; and create a more intimate, sheltered area next to the resource centre. Strong linear detailing in the floorscape will link all these areas creating a cohesive whole.

Starting from scratch in the resource centre area we will be able to completely change its character. The large circular floor detail, edged with text, will evolve to form a cast seating unit that sort of spawns the seating disks. The edge of the circle will have a kind of tubular trellis screen partway round to co-ordinate in style with the 'growing' structures, helping to shelter the area from its wind problem.

This trellis-type construction, planted eventually to be with climbing shrubs, can be used to hide the staining to the science block which flanks the space. Also to 'clad' the front of the youth club, and create a screen which hides the sewage station as you enter the area.

The soft landscaping, and the planting of a variety of trees within the playground area will complement the wider planting initiatives around the school for the 40th birthday celebrations.

The proposed developments should make Swavesey Village College a much more pleasant place to be. By involving the students we have built a sense of anticipation and a feeling of pride that their input can make a difference. The innovative nature of the design, and the new developments which are taking it into new realms, suggest new possibilities for not only this project, but for the future initiatives. It seems to sum up Swavesey Village College in Transition.

The Background

Early Autumn 1997 I was approached by my old school, Swavesey Village College in Cambridgeshire, to consider creating a sculpture to mark the new extension of the Art and Design department, and wider building programme. The culmination of which would be the focus for their 40th birthday celebrations in November 1998.

I was struck, after not having been back to the school or village for nearly eight years, by the changes already in progress at the school. But also there is a continuity, I seemed to recognise so many of the students, who were in fact relatives of the people I knew when I lived in the village. I was determined to find a design which reflects a growth and development, but which connects with the people of the place who on one hand grow and change, but who also represent an element of the continuity.

It did seem at the beginning though, that an entrance sculpture for the Art department would be such a drop in the ocean in what was a fairly bleak site.

That's when the brief started to grow. I was asked to go and talk to the school council who had raised some money from their annual sponsored walk and wanted to spend it on enhancing their exterior social spaces.

They expressed to me their suggestions for solving the problems they had with finding comfortable places to hang out with their friends, outside following restrictions inside the buildings. They also had wider concerns about the playground environment, and asked if we would look at them in co-ordination with my sculpture project.