Lymington Fields School

If there’s one thing we’ve learned makes better buildings, it’s empathy. Architecture never happens in isolation—and simply by being interested and engaged, we’ve found it’s possible to open up the conversations that connect a scheme to its clients and community.

We believe that the more constraints there are, the better the architecture. If there aren’t any constraints, we create them. Challenging sites, existing buildings and complex briefs almost always present incredible opportunities for great design.

To limit our environmental impact, we start with what is already there. By manipulating the form and fabric of a building—whether new or existing—we can work with the existing conditions of topography, light and orientation, and harness the natural energy sources offered by air, ground and water.

If a site’s constraints guide the bigger design decisions, then it’s empathy that informs the smaller, social details. These details frame the human narratives that aren’t included in the brief, anticipating specific moments in the users’ lives.

Good architecture is as much about what happens on the building site as it is about what’s on the drawing board. By working alongside contractors as well as clients we can ring-fence the ideas and details that matter, championing quality and sustainability throughout construction.

Lymington Fields School

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Work

Lymington Fields
Dagenham, London

Client

Thames Partnership for Learning
London Borough of Barking & Dagenham

Lymington Fields is a new-build, all through school with a nursery on the Lymington
Fields site. The school is adjacent to a new residential development and forms part of the London Borough of Barking & Dagenham’s regeneration plan.

The scheme will accommodate a 39 place Nursery, 3 form entry Primary School and 6
forms entry Secondary School for 11 -16-year-olds. The theme of ‘big school and
little school’ has been explored in the design and this concept has helped to
define the architectural forms and choice of materials.

The school site is flanked to the west by a new public square, a new carriageway to
the north and existing retail buildings and single-storey dwellings to the
east. To the south are existing dwellings whose rear gardens abutt the school's
southernmost boundary.

A key design intention for the site has been to define the site’s visual boundary through the use of the mass of the two school buildings. The proposal suggests deterrent paving and planting rather than fencing. Another design objective has been to create two separate, yet equally engaging entrances for both the secondary and primary students.