The new girls’ boarding house at Stowe finds continuity of surprise and delight in the Arcadian setting of British worthies.
Setting
In the southwest of Stowe Gardens, a new girls’ boarding house has been introduced into the setting of one of the pre-eminent examples of the English Landscape Movement.
Sheltered at the edge of a long dividing strip of structured woodland known as Pyramid Wood or Rook Spinney defining the edge of the Western Gardens, the area is concealed from the historically constructed grazing land once of English longhorns and rare breeds.
An outskirt of the pleasure gardens, the landscape apron has long been a place for surprise and delight. In the undergrowth,
a ruined foundation and base of Vanbrugh’s last work at Stowe is still visible; a 60-foot Egyptian-style pyramid, completed by Gibbs after Vanbrugh’s death and dedicated to his memory.
Since Stowe School’s founding in 1923, there has been incremental development along the fringe of the Western Gardens and inside the linear tree belt. In 1935 R Fielding Dodd added a set of three repeating outlying masters’ residences known as the Home Park Houses. Now sheltered by mature trees from the historic landscape, the Neo-Georgian street is a suburban adjunct to the Arcadian dream.
West
is
A New Typology
Since the School’s founding, they have undertaken an ambitious set of improvements to the estate. Contributing to this transformation, the office has worked on a number of projects for the School over the last eighteen years, helping to develop a masterplan, two boarding houses and an art school. As a consequence of the longstanding partnership, the setting offered an opportunity to depart from the tried and
tested formal, and operational typologies associated with independent boarding and pastoral care.
As demand for sixth form places has increased, the existing Home Park Houses have been unable to cater to the needs of the School. The new house provides 24 en-suite study bedrooms and reconciles shared functions of the existing Houses.
“The architects show their customary sensitivity to the contextual surroundings of Home Park as a gateway to the Western Garden...
House
a masterclass in demonstrating MICA’s skill in lifting the mundane into the sublime.”
- Dr Anthony Wallersteiner, Stowe Headmaster
The Response
A snaking path links the Home Park boarding settlement to the main school campus to the north, cranking through woods and over sloping ground to meet a cluster of two-storey houses. The site hugs tightly to the houses and outbuildings, performing as a gateway to the landscape.
The plan is split into two blocks, a lowlying two-storey block with external terrace and main shared facilities. The second is partially sunken into the ground plane over three floors and connected by a bridge over the path running between.
Utilising the path, the new accommodation runs alongside the three houses, continuing a loose concatenation of line, materiality and form, enclosing a courtyard as a bridging element to the fourth house.
The adjacent houses are simple rectangular footprints of earthy brown brick tones and white steel framed windows. The three houses are connected by single storey wings traced by a brick string course and a common eaves level marking tall chimneys and steep pantile roofs.
Form
Path, topography, woodland, and surrounding massing are playfully integrated in response to the setting. Arranged over two blocks linked at high level, the silhouette is refracted into groupings of taller volumes framed by terraces and parapets.
The path is enclosed by solid walls of finely detailed brick and sentried by a solemn drum and tower elements, into a small courtyard. Bedrooms at ground are sheltered by the deep set tree belt offering long views across the open landscape.
Datums are taken from adjacent houses – the common eaves level marks a parapet, with a soldier course regulating ground and first floor divisions. From these guides, volumes shift, rise and fall in curtains of brick. Windows are loosely arranged in open plan spaces or aligned behind stacks of accommodation, in crisp white arrangements. A faintly noticed change in brick pointing above the string course rewards closer observers.
Above Common areas double as circulation, connecting clusters of rooms through double height volumes.
Below Sculptural volumes are expressed as elemental brick elevations
Internal Fabric
Tightly planned study bedrooms clustered in multiples of threes and sixes, contain twelve bedrooms in a block, giving flexibility to occupancy and management arrangements. Bedrooms open onto common areas avoiding the dreaded “corridor” and encourage positive shared living experiences. The accommodation clusters are connected by double-height spaces, a feature glazed bridge, bright and open stairwells, and sheltered raised external terraces.
Internal elements give form to the external shape. Staircase and lift are celebrated in
brick drums and short towers, reminiscent of castle forms and defensive structures. Light oak floors and white walls provide a background environment to ground floor common areas, enlivened by large picture windows with views of the landscape. Upper levels have strong colour ranges of yellow and orange flooring to animate common spaces and are used as an organising principle, differentiating floors and connecting shared spaces. Bedrooms are recessive, with white fitted furniture as a neutral backdrop to brighter flooring and the warmer neutrals of the window seats fabrics and curtains.
Above
En-suite study bedrooms with window seats providing views to the landscape
Project Data
Start Oct 2016
Completion Sept 2017
Gross Overall Floor Area 800m2
Form Of Contract JCT Intermediate with Contractors Design
Construction Cost £2.8m
Construction Cost Per m2 £3,890
Architect MICA
Client Stowe School
Structural Engineer Price & Myers
M&E Consultant RED Engineering
Quantity Surveyors Michael Edwards & Associates
Landscape Consultants Quartet Design
Acoustic Consultants Sandy Brown Associates
Project Manager Stowe School
CDM Coordinator Vance Miller Health and Safety
Approved Building Inspector Salus
Main Contractor Stepnell
Cad Software Used Microstation
