How did I get into Architecture? Five years ago I thought my life was bumbling along nicely. Children happy at school, a 20 year career in health and social care behind me, a manageable income, a small mortgage. One evening I sat in a school governors meeting listening to Richard Fielden, of Fielden Clegg and Bradley Architects. He had been commissioned to design a new school to replace our 1960’s and Victorian shamble of buildings. He didn’t present a building plan at this stage. He talked of the important ingredients in creating a successful building. He talked of how a building…. a building …. plays a role in transforming people’s lives and in this case young people’s educational experience. Yes, the education offered, the quality of teaching and support to pupils matters, but for the first time I was hearing that the bricks and mortar and the space between them, interior and exterior, mattered a whole lot more than I had ever realised.
How could a building do that? Richard talked of space, how people move through a building, the quality of materials used in the construction, how colour is used, daylight, and fresh air and how this contributes to how tired (or cold, or hot) we feel when we are learning. I was inspired by the architect and the fantastic way that he and the head teacher, Ray Priest worked together to seek the best for the young people in our school.
Well, how things turn out in life is always a surprise, don’t you think? Six weeks after that governors meeting, I was enrolled at University of West of England to study Architecture and Planning for the next 4 years, and was working out my notice at work … and I knew I wasn’t mad and my children were so proud of me. My mom trained as a teacher after 20 years of office and shop work, when she was 38. So I guess it wasn’t that much of an odd thing to me. My own children know too now that we can learn all through our lives ….. it doesn’t have to stop at 16.
I carried on as a school governor for a while longer, long enough to be involved in the consultation that needed to happen with the whole school community. Young people, staff, parents and our neighbours, the people who would use the building for adult education and the sports facilities that were going to be built. I remember one particular evening where lots of parents were looking at the design drawings. They, and I, needed to be persuaded that a long corridor would not necessarily lead to lots of boys racing down and knocking everyone else flying, … well that’s what us parents think about! Pupils met at their school council and armed with a wish list, talked with us, and the architects confidently, with assurance that they knew what a school should include. A dance centre, a drama studio, a place to make and record music, and …… decent, safe clean toilets!!!!!
They got all of those things and more. Richard, the architect, died before the building was finished. A lecture and performance space is dedicated to him. The success of the school building is a legacy to the care he expressed about people and design and getting everyone to contribute to the ideas.
Three years later, I was guided around the new school by two of the pupils I had talked with at those consultation sessions. They were now in year 11 and had had to put up with a construction site around them for most of their school life. They were so proud of how the school looked … all the new up to date facilities, and the toilets ( these were shared with staff and visitors, and regularly maintained ) The quiet spaces, the noisy lively spaces, the prayer rooms for Muslim pupils, the lecture and performance theatre.
I was now using the school as a case study in my research on the quality of new school buildings …. A fitting end to my 4 years of study, which went along with designing a secondary school for my final year design project … one building that young people would frankly be relieved was not built!
I carried on being involved in consultation in a number of ways. I assisted at public event that asked the residents of a small neighbourhood what they wanted to see happen to their local rec. It was the first time I came across, so starkly, how people wanted to stop young people hanging around, sitting and as far as I could tell, even breathe anywhere near to their homes …
“ we can’t have benches, because kids will sit on them” It was a successful event in the end, as the organiser had made sure that groups of kids from clubs, and school were invited. The community now have a brand new all weather multi sports pitch and there is a sensory garden and new well lit paths that go somewhere! The older kids did not get their skate park, but the council who were listening, offered them an alternative site and they got to design it, so that it worked!!
More recently, I was asked to offer some advice to a project in Sandwell, that is using an interactive game to get young people involved in how a patch of land in their neighbourhood will look. It was like a mad form of computer aided design that could start out as a game, making wild and wacky things appear on this site, and then a bit more seriously, it led to discussions of what this place could be like. On the screen, they could look at 3 D created views of the streets they lived on, complete with graffiti and their houses.
That project is ongoing and I wait with interest to see how it will all go. What I learnt over the last few years is that people of all ages have a point of view about what is around them, the places they visit, use, work live and play in. And those points of view are not always popular with architects, designers, and council leaders, but the places are better places for those points of view. Those two young people who proudly showed me around their new school Got It!!!! They were most proud of the fact that for the first time in years, everyone wanted to come to their school, it was no longer a dump and they felt important. The power of a new building eh?
Judy Preston
