PfS names most versatile learning environment

The recently opened Joseph Rowntree School in York has been named as the UK’s most versatile learning environment in the Partnerships for Schools awards.

Designed by Bond Bryan Architects, the £28m school was built on time and to budget. The 12,000m2 building has two three-storey and four two-storey teaching clusters arranged around a central internal street linking all of the learning spaces. 

The Joseph Rowntree School in York, designed by Sheffield-based Bond Bryan Architects, has been completed. It was voted the UK’s most versatile learning environment in the recent Partnership for Schools Awards and was built on-time and to a budget of £28 million including £? million Project Faraday Award.

Initially envisaged by the City of York planners as a two-storey building, Bond Bryan argued for the school to have greater height to increase its impact, while sitting well within the rural context.  The 12,000m” building has two three-storey and four two-storey teaching clusters arranged around a central internal street linking all of the learning spaces. 

Bond Bryan director Geoff Halliwell says “versatility was the watchword” throughout the design development, adding that all the spaces were designed to be flexible enough to cope with anything the school day requires at present and adaptable enough for any future changes. 

Bond Bryan worked with contractor Carillion, engineer Buro Happold and landscape architect AWP on this projects.