Notes to editors

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2. Full citation follows:

Marlowe Academy

Ramsgate

 

Architect: Building Design Partnership

Client: The Marlowe Academy; Roger de Haan

Structural Engineer: Building Design Partnership

Project Mgr/QS:  Davis Langdon Project Management

Contractor:  Wates

Contract Value:  £21,500,000

Date of completion: Sep 2006

Gross internal area: 10,000 sq m

 

This is a new City Academy which replaces the existing failing Ramsgate School. It will serve as a catalyst for wider community regeneration as it combines a new learning hub with branch library, adult education facilities, sports hall and performance spaces. Currently accommodating 675 pupils, though designed for an eventual complement of 1100, the school community includes a high proportion of students with special educational needs.

 

The design on a level, open site arranges the teaching accommodation in three curved wings, corresponding to faculty organisation – arts, science and humanities – and uses these to encircle a huge curving arena, within or adjacent to which are disposed the key communal spaces, auditorium, library, and gymnasium, expressed as distinct entities yet with their own material expression. Other shared functions such as IT pods and the cafeteria are introduced as discrete sculptural forms or occur within the spaces created by the main building enclosure.

 

The effect of this strategy has been to create the feeling of a sort of indoor 'village', where the resident community can see itself in action and witness the diversity of its achievements. The vast toplit arena with its timber gridshell roof is a grand, almost operatic, space which by virtue of the two-way stage arrangement and the upper galleries serving tiers of classrooms enables the whole school to participate in assemblies or large performance activities. The traditional corridor, with its associated problems of congestion and inefficiency, has been replaced by a series of lively spaces with real social and educational potential.

 

To his considerable credit the new principal (appointed after the design had been settled) has re-orientated the school's operational policies to suit the new building as built – "no lining up, no bells" - and has inculcated a new ethos of aspiration and achievement, where pupils want to learn and staff want to teach. At a time when massive resources are being directed towards the rebuilding of Britain's educational infrastructure, Marlowe Academy offers an ambitious re-definition of what a large new school can look and feel like.

 

The Sorrell Foundation was set up to inspire creativity in young people and to improve the quality of life through good design. The RIBA Sorrell Foundation Schools Award is the UK's first prize for excellence in school architecture, set up to further raise the standard of design in all new primary and secondary school buildings.

 

3. The RIBA Stirling Prize in association with The Architects' Journal is the UK's most prestigious architectural prize and is awarded annually to the architects of the building that has made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year. Winners must be RIBA Members and the building may be anywhere in the European Union. The shortlists are drawn from the winners of the 2007 RIBA National and European Awards. The prize is named after the architect Sir James Stirling 1926 – 1992. The winner will receive £20,000. 

 

4. All RIBA Award winners can be seen at www.architecture.com|

 

5. The RIBA Awards and RIBA Stirling Prize are managed by the RIBA Trust. The RIBA Trust manages the cultural assets of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA), including the internationally recognised collections of the British Architectural Library. It is the UK's national architecture centre, delivering the RIBA Awards and RIBA Stirling Prize (live on Channel 4); the Royal Gold Medal; International and Honorary Fellowships; Architecture Week (with Arts Council England and the Architecture Centre Network); a full programme of lectures, exhibitions, tours and other events; and an education programme.