Emanuel Science and Dining

Spread over four floors, it contains a dining hall and associated servery, kitchens and back of house catering facilities at ground floor. Above are three floors of teaching accommodation consisting of science laboratories, science prep rooms, general teaching rooms, meeting spaces, an atrium social learning space and associated WCs and stores. 

Architecturally, the building expresses the different elements of the brief that it contains. The ground floor dining and catering forms the base of the building. The first and second floors accommodate the majority of the practical science teaching and prep rooms and follow the same general footprint as the ground floor.  The science tutorial rooms to the third (top) floor are smaller, allowing the building to be cut back to reduce the massing.

Referencing the internal functions of the building, the materials have been selected to complement and respond to those found on the existing estate. Cues have been taken from the textures, tones and hues of the brickwork, stone and slate of the adjacent Snell Building.

The brick plinth is punctuated in numerous places, creating a glazed entrance to the west as well as a virtually fully glazed south facade with brick piers offering support to the building above. The west facade of the brick plinth is further fragmented by the introduction of the main external staircase to the first floor entrance. 

The main entrances are designed to create clear and welcoming approaches, indicated with large glazed openings at ground floor, and a stair and canopy leading to the first floor.

The ‘gold’ hue of the brick arches of the Snell building is referenced in the cladding adjacent entrance to the east elevation, the canopy soffit, the render colour behind the south elevation brise soleil, and the window reveals.

The facades to the first and second floor have been developed to read as a continuous wrapping skin of terracotta, which is then punctuated with openings to respond to the requirement for maximum natural light within the classrooms and circulation areas, varying from facade to facade depending on orientation and internal use. The terracotta cladding offers hue consistency with the existing building whilst recognising the need for difference. Dark grey metal standing seam cladding is used at the top level, responding both to the different internal educational function and the tonal difference of the Snell Building roof.

The main entrances are designed to create clear and welcoming approaches, indicated with large glazed openings at ground floor, and a stair and canopy leading to the first floor.

The ‘gold’ hue of the brick arches of the Snell building is referenced in the cladding adjacent entrance to the east elevation, the canopy soffit, the render colour behind the south elevation brise soleil, and the window reveals.