Learning promenade

… a 6th form Learning Resources Centre

The Learning Promenade is an intermediary Building Schools for the Future (BSF) project for Bishop Thomas Grant (BTG) Secondary School in Lambeth. As part of BSF’s Phase 2, BTG School was having to wait for at least two years before its main BSF project would start. However, by September 2009, the school was due to begin teaching a new 6th form and new study facilities will be required to accommodate the additional pupils and their particular learning requirements. The school’s steering group asked LB Lambeth to fund an Intermediary BSF project for a 6th form Learning Resources Centre to occupy the space of the existing Library.

SCABAL, as BTG’s CDA, was asked to come up with a design for the new 6th form LRC. The design is flexible enough to accommodate different future uses, once the accommodation for a permanent 6th form LRC has been constructed.

The project aims to retain the qualities of an existing room such as its generous amount of natural light, open plan and its long rectangular shape. As part of SCABAL’s ongoing research on schools and different methods of learning, the Learning Promenade is a great opportunity to demonstrate how different pupils learn better in different environments.

BTG pupils were asked to share their views and preferences during a consultation day at the school. The workshop, run by SCABAL, led to a real involvement of the pupils in the design of the new LRC.

With a limited budget of £100,000, SCABAL has involved the school in the design to make a simple, but bold, intervention in the former school library. Consequently the Learning Promenade will become a special and iconic part of BTG School and will help motivate both students and staff to become strongly involved clients during the main stage of the BSF project..